Recent Pics

Binx is missing out and Tally is trying to take his place, but she just doesn't get it all!
Posing Adayla

Sorting thru the winter stuff, Adayla was quite helpful.
Tally had her syrup this evening, she loved it.
Tally playing Peek-a-Boo, except her hands were sticking to her face.

Chels and Bryan in Downtown DC.
At the WWII Memorial.

Adayla's favorite part on the metro!

Last week at the zoo, notice the panda in the background....
Tally was happy to be at the zoo!
Adayla's favorite...the elephants!
The tulips around here are BEAUTIFUL!
Happy Metro Riders!

Pics while the girls were in Wyoming....

Easter morning, quite difficult to get 3 kids to all look at the camera at the same time.
Is that the Easter Bunny? No, I think it is Adayla!

Sisters!
Even Adayla's purses need a diaper change.
Even harder, 4 kids looking at the camera....
Cousins!
Aunt Jewls with the girls.

Little Grandma and Tally
Tally Waggers...a pic from last November
3 crazies!
Her new favorite shoes!

Someone give her some food!

Saturday is a special day....

Today was busy from the start, we took a break from the preparations! We had lunch with one of Tim's high school friends, Berger and his wife, Erin. We had a great lunch at Smokey Bones and then went to Berger's Mom's house for a brief visit. We have met up with them a few other times and get a big kick out of them. He is such a happy guy and they are quite funny together. Adayla likes them alot and really enjoyed playing with them today.

Then this afternoon we had our final Olmstead gathering at the folk's house who are going to Japan. It was good times and good burgers. Adayla showed off her Chinese as Tim was telling about all the things she knows and uses. A few minutes later, she came up and said, "Daddy I want a Xiang Jiao." He asked her again and she said the same thing. He didn't know what she wanted and so she took him into the kitchen and pointed to the bananas. I was in the other room and Tim asked me what is a banana in Chinese. I said a xiang jiao. Everyone was quite impressed. Tally had the time of her life playing with all the new toys and crawling all over the place. She enjoyed climbing on some new things too. They had a plastic picnic table in the living room and she thought she was so cute to sit on the table and rock!

A few more Adayla funnies:
The other morning she told Tim as they were about to eat breakfast...Get your beibao off my weizi or Get your backpack off my chair. She is clever!
This morning as we were getting ready to go, there was a bag on the floor that had a bear on it. She asked me as I was fixing her hair what it was and I told her a bear. She asked if the bear was going to bite her. About 10 minutes later, she starts screaming he's biting my shoe in a very worried voice. I thought she was talking about Tally playing with one of her shoes and told her it would be SHE is biting my shoe. She repeated herself with he a few more times and finally I looked and her shoe was on the picture of the bear on the bag. It looked as if he was biting her shoe. She does this all in total seriousness and then only laughs when we do.

Her is a Tally funny, she loves to play where is Tally? She immediately puts her hands on top of her head (not over her eyes or even on her face). After you ask where Tally is a few more times, she will then drag her hands all over her face, pulling her eyes and nose in different directions.

The temp has been in the 70's and it been beautiful. Today it rained and the temp has dropped into the 50's. So once I got home, I decided what a perfect time to heat up the house and clean the oven. So once task is out of the way and we didn't have to heat up the house when it was 70 degrees outside. And I didn't have to worry about the girls getting near the extremely hot oven.

We are on our way to bed, so until I remember some more things to post......

Preparing to move....

The past few weeks have been extremely busy with lots to do in preparing to move. But the house is coming together (or should I say apart?) and we have our piles all over.

The big news of the day was Tim finished his classes for language training! How has it already been 10 months, but we are ready to move on and speak it daily. He is blessed with a good ear and so though this language is extremely difficult, he is speaking and understanding quite a bit. He takes his DLPT test starting on Monday and will finish on Wednesday. It is the military's way of measuring his language proficiency. Chinese has 3 parts: listening, speaking, and reading. Each test is about 3 hours and so he chose to have it spread over 3 days. Good luck!

The girls are just doing their thing. We love to watch them interact with each other. Tally is strong willed, but already looks up to what Adayla is doing. Adayla pushes her around and then gives her the biggest hugs. They make each other laugh and giggle.

The week has gone by so fast. It is seems like last weekend was forever ago, so I forget to mention the visitors we had. Chelsie and Bryan brought Binx for a visit!! I realized how much I missed him. Adayla and Tally loved having him home again!! We liked having Chels and Bryan here, too. Adayla woke up to find Binx and I asked her where she thought Chelsie and Bryan were? She said they are at their house, so they got to sleep in! But when they came upstairs, she ran over and gave them the biggest hug.

We shopped, ate, played cards (the famous New Years match was only brought up about 40 times, Bryan and Tim will gladly tell you about it), toured downtown Washington DC, and had fun. We also sent them home with a car full of stuff! We have enjoyed having them as neighbors while we have been in Virginia.

We took Tally in again to the doctor on Monday and he still thinks it is torticollis. He recommended an ultrasound on her neck, we are still trying to get that appointment set up. Hopefully that will tell us something. We are also trying to get her into an eye doctor, but we are running out of time here. The time for appointments is much longer than we have, so we will try to do that on leave. I will update once we find out anything.

She has started cruising pretty quickly and may occasionally stand for just a few seconds on her own. She likes to walk with you when you are holding both her hands. She has begun to make sounds for doggie when she sees one walking and a definite H sound for hello. She still takes her two naps a day and has just recently started playing when she wakes up, instead of crying. She is still liking her mom, but is very happy with Tim or Adayla.

I think Adayla has started to feel the change that is about to take place. She is a bit grumpy! Or like she told me the other day while talking to Aunt Shayla, "Mom, I am crabby!" We have gotten rid of quite a bit of our furniture and some of her toys. I told we won't be taking her crib with us to China, but that she will get a big girl bed. She is very helpful though and likes to do things that the big people do.

That is it for now, it is bedtime and we have plenty to do around the house!

Dongwuyuan = Animal Park

I typed this last on April 25th and never posted it, so here it is.

Today was a beautiful day and so what did we do on this beautiful day outside? We went to the zoo! We had planned to go with some friends, Max and Elle, but Elle wasn't feeling well. So we waited until daddy was out of class and had him join us. It was sunny and 75. There was a bit of breeze and eventually some cloud coverage. We wanted to make it to the zoo before we moved. Adayla has always loved the zoo and today Tally was interested in seeing the animals. Her little feet would get a kicking and she would just smile.

I would have to say that Adayla's favorite animal is the elephant. When we read books and see a pic of an elephant, she used to say mom can you do the elephant noise? She realized that only Daddy does the elephant noise. And so she now says when we see a pic of an elephant, when daddy gets home...can he do the elephant noise? Today we were prepared to come upon the elephants, she got so excited and said, "Daddy do the elephant noise!!" Later we went to see the Lions and Tigers (shizi and laohu), this is the place where many times we have had lunch on a bench. As we passed the bench today, she went to sit down and said Mom lets have some sandwiches. She doesn't forget.

Anyways the animals were really active and we had our best view of the pandas. I will try to post a few pics soon!

Lotta poo-poos, Lotta poo-poos....

For those of you that have seen the lotta pee-pee dance, tonight Adayla did the lotta poo-poo dance tonight. Actually, there wasn't any dancing involved. The girls were taking a bath and I was cleaning the rest of the bathroom while they were playing. Adayla shouted Tally is Stinky!! Which didn't make me look because that is what I tell them when it is time for a bath. After she repeated it a few times, I looked, and say lotta poo-poos. Tally had definitely done her business in the bathtub and must have felt much better because she continued to play! Meanwhile my little neat nut, Adayla, was freaking out and starts screaming. I pull Tally out and Adayla hops out. We moved them to the shower and really cleaned them up. Adayla eventually calmed down and wanted to keep looking at the poop in the tub. After they were all clean, I got to do the honors of cleaning out the tub. The rest of the night, Adayla kept saying, "Tally pooped in the bathtub!" I am sure this is a typical story for any mother, but we had never had this happen before. What a way to spruce up the evening!

As for the rest of the day, we did a little grocery shopping in the morning. That means buying cereal by the cart full. You can get most things in Shanghai, but American cereal is 10-12 bucks a box! We have a consumables shipment and that will be a good part of it!

Tally continues climbing up the stairs like crazy. She loves it, probably because we keep bringing her immediately back down. She can make it all the way to the top! She has started cruising along things, but no interest in walking on her own. She loves to eat (probably the cause of all that poo!) Tonight we had chicken wraps and she ate the shell, cheese, and the chicken. She has learned to quit screaming for food and does her "more please". Which has evolved to mostly clapping, but we know what she means and she doesn't have to cry.

Adayla is just a funny little independent person. If she spills water on her shirt or pants, we must take it off and get a new one. She still obcessively takes toys around in a plastic bag or purse. Along with asking everyone's birthdays, she is know curious as to how old everyone is. She is very sweet and tells everyone Tally is 11 months. It is amazing how much she is listening to us. Because we have been talking about what month people's birthdays are, we taught her the months of the year in a song. She will gladly sing this for you upon request. The people in nursery have repeatedly told us how much they love her in there, she is very helpful and sings all the songs. Tonight Tim was studying for his last military test and she told him she wanted to study also. Tim told her she could sit by him only if she was very quiet. She grabbed a book and read over and over while sitting quietly next to him. That is my blurp for tonight, I just don't want to forget some of the funny happenings around here. :)

Please bless.....

Here's a quick one for the night.....We went over to a family's house from church (he is actually a Mormon AF Chaplain and so they knew a bit about Tim's parents), anyways really fun family. The mom runs the nursery and so Adayla was quite comfortable with them. So as we were about to eat dinner, Adayla volunteered to say the blessing, and we never really know who she is going to pray for each time. Usually just a few people in our extended family, but not tonight as we are having dinner with others, she says, "And bless Dora and Boots." Then she finished her prayer like normal. How truly sweet little kids prayers are!

A few pics.....

Here are a few pics of the girls from a recent b-day party. The rest are from Shanghai and some of the views from our new place, I should have let you come take your own pics, but here is something for you to get excited about when you visit. The place we are living is on the 31st and 32nd stories of the building. We have 4 bedrooms and an office. We have a great guestroom with it's own bathroom. It is comforting moving over there knowing where we are going to be. Enjoy the pics, I will post some soon from the girls vacation. Sorry about how random they appear, I am still getting the hang of this blogging thing!


Adayla at her friend Ian's 3rd Birthday party, she loved the icing and ice cream.



Adayla and Tally in the Soft Play Room at Ian's birthday party. They loved it!

One of the local streets (more of an alley) during lunchtime....really crowded, but lots of fun!

Those tannish buildings with red roofs is our compound. We are the tall building on the far left, our buildings look short next to Jin Mao and the World Financial Center.

Does anyone want to go grocery shopping? This is very typical at a Chinese market, among other things......
This is the historic part of Shanghai, The Bund, beautiful at night and just across the river and up from our apartment.

Tally at Ian's birthday party, she loved it! She crawled like crazy all over and went down the slides.

A local and typical street vendor selling a few varietys of meat they cook right there.

View from our balcony, the "ball" building is called the Pearl (Shanghai is called the pearl of the Orient), we are hoping in the short time we live there that that brown cleared patch doesn't become a building that blocks our view! The Pearl has a museum and a few restaurants and is about a 10 minute walk from our place.
Another view from our place....the Jin Mao, one of the world's ex-tallest buildings and the new World Financial Center, will be the world's tallest building for a period of months before another building somewhere else is completed.
View of the river from our balcony, notice the never ending tall buildings......

Our compound, pic taken from the upstairs balcony garden area. It is amazing the amount of green area we will have, not like the rest of Shanghai.

Home again, home again

Well we made it home!! I actually posted from home last time, but hadn't written since Shanghai. We were so glad to make it home!!! Especially Morgan and the girls.....you know you are having a bad flight when the flight attendant sings a lullaby to your baby. That alone wouldn't have been so bad, but give me 2 grumpy girls who didn't sleep much the night before and a mom who had slept probably only 4 of the last 48 hours....that was not a good mesh! But we survived and are enjoying these little girls again.

In the hotel room the night before, Adayla would not go to sleep. She was bouncing around the room, on the bed, turning lights on and off, and just making her jet lagged mom crazy. I really thought I might have to hurt her, so I told her Adayla I am going to spank you....and I did (at least a little one). She turns to me and says, "Mom, are we still best friends?"

The big news is that we actually got orders last Friday!!! (For you non-military...no one will begin to talk to you about moving without them, not movers, not appointments, not flights, NOTHING!) So needless to say, we were thrilled to finally have them. We have movers scheduled, passports mailed, and flights booked to China for the 21st of June! We have been clearing out our stuff, after being in China, we realized we won't take much of our stuff with us. So Morgan has been doing her work on Craigslist, we decided it isn't worth it to store some of stuff for two years, even though the military pays for our storage. There are lots of fun things we will bring back from China and it will be fun to have a fresh start.

As for the girls, they are back into the routine of Virginia. Adayla has had to retaught of all things that she is not supposed to say....thanks Josie, she told on you every time! She keeps telling us about when she is going to go to China. The other day I asked her, how to do you get to China? She told me, "You take a left, and then a right!" There is no concept there of distance, but as long as we are all together, that is what matters!

Tally did have an excuse for being so grumpy on the plane, I took her to the doctor last Friday for a double ear infection. She is fine now, thanks to the amoxicillan. She didn't know right away when I got off the plane, she was sweet and gave me a little hug, and then wanted to go right back to Odie. So it means, they were well taken care of in Wyoming! We appreciate them so much for taking the girls for us, we didn't have to worry and the girls enjoyed there time.

Adayla now knows where Grandpa and Jeremy work....at Williams Productions, he's a Coal Bed Methane Engineer and at the local mines, he's a mechanic. It is as clear as day. Adayla did tell me the other day as we drove past some soccer fields, "Is that where Josie plays soccer, I want to go hang out at her soccer game!"

The girls are so funny together, sometimes I think they are like two little boys they way the wrestle around. At first, I thought Adayla was hurting Tally, until I realized Tally was just laughing and laughing. Tally essentially dives into Adayla, Adayla rolls her over and pretty much sits on her. They just giggle and giggle.

Tally doesn't just let Adayla take away her toys or whatever has, as Adayla tugs at it, Tally gets a death grip and then screams at the top of her lungs. The other day, Adayla actually drug Tally around the room, as Tally would not let go. I keep telling Adayla, you better be nice, one of these days Tally is just going to whomp you!

Tally is into holding things up to her ear and "talking". She loves real phones and loves talking to people. She will usually babble at them. I think back to Adayla and she did that same thing at this age, except for a couple of weeks she would say a clear "Hello". Tally is pulling her self up quite quickly and comfortably, but no interest in walking. She figures she gets around just fine crawling. Tim was chasing Adayla around the "track" in our house and told Tally, "Come on!" She started crawling as fast as she could after them! She is very sweet and if you ask her for a big hug, she snuggles on you for a minute.

We did take Tally to the physical therapist on Monday to have her look at her neck, which started sitting straight as of the Friday before. Her head was crooked for about 6 weeks and then one day, she is back to normal. The PT said it was definitely not torticollis, but suggested we get her eyes examined. We plan on getting this done before we leave.

A couple of funnies for the week:
It looked like Adayla had a bit of a black eye (it wasn't) and as I tried to get a closer look, I asked her do you have a black eye? She quickly responded, "No mom, my eyes are brown!"
In our prayers with Adayla the other evening after a long day of Adayla harassing Tally, Adayla was saying it by herself and started to repeat somethings, so I jumped into to help her and asked that Adayla may always be kind and loving towards Tally. Adayla followed that with, so that Mommy won't have to flick my hands!
We have gotten rid of some of Adayla's toys we aren't taking to China with us, promising her that when we get to China she can have some new toys. One of them happened to be her little tricyle. So she now says, mom when I get to China, I am going to get a new bike, PEDAL, PEDAL, PEDAL!

Right now Adayla is very concerned about when everybody's birthdays are and so we talk about whose is when. After asking about Tally, Daddy, and Mommy, she asked when is Binx's birthday followed by when is Maddux's birthday? She keeps us busy, but by this summer she will have her entire family's birthdays down.

Shanghai

Here we are in Shanghai (not really by the time you read this, but that is where I am writing this). All we can say is AMAZING!! Let me back up….

I flew with the girls to Wyoming. We flew direct out of Baltimore to Denver….only about a 4 hour flight. As we drove thru DC to get to the airport, Adayla was wide awake and said, “Hey look, the Capitol!” We are in awe at how she is so aware of her surroundings, you could barely see it and it was very early in the morning. We had to get up at 4:45 to get there and so it was Tally’s nap time as we were about to take off. Finally after 45 minutes of crying, she fell asleep for about an hour. The rest of the flight was just fine. As we were waiting for Little Grandma, Grandpa, Josie, and Jewels to pick us up at the baggage claim, I pointed to Adayla the direction they were. She took off running and fell flat on her face! She hopped up and ran to meet them, she giggled and snorted for about 5 minutes.

I spent a few days in Wyoming and then flew back to Denver…..I know why I had never before taken a plane from there. The wind was blowing 40 mph and it felt as if we were going to blown off the runway in this 30 passenger jet. But I made it and spent a night all by myself. It was weird, but thankfully Air Force basketball was on and I watched them for a few hours. Unfortunately they lost : ( I woke up early the next morning for my flight to Detroit, where I met up with Tim and together we left for China.

We have been staying with a fellow Olmsted Scholar which has been wonderful. They have showed us around, given us lots of tips, and not to forget a cozy place to stay! We actually adjusted to the time difference rather quickly (thanks to the help of a few sleeping pills!) Our toughest decision for this trip was deciding where to live. Our three options along with some weighing factors were:
Downtown Pudong – Walking distance from most everything and great views, some locals, but a smaller place to live. We had to decide how much fun it would really be to be dragging a couple kids up and down the elevator.
Villa Community about a 15 minute taxi ride from downtown – Great neighborhood townhouse community, still some locals, a little more space and a bit of a backyard, more kid friendly, and closer to people that we would be going to church with. But really not much to walk to and therefore would definitely have to get a driver.
Suburb Villa Community – Huge, Gorgeous house in quiet neighborhood with fewer locals, take a taxi or have a driver to get anywhere. Lots of room in the house with beautiful backyard.

We decided to look and all 3 and see how we felt. After much thought and prayer, we decided that we would try an apartment for the first year, but having the option to move the second year. We found a 4 bedroom plus an office with outstanding views and very centrally located. Many Chinese with a child live there and so Adayla and Tally can hopefully make some friends. There is a kindergarten/preschool on the compound that is all in Chinese, except for a few English classes. It will become our home and it will be comforting as we leave the States we have a place we really like to go!

Shopping is at a whole new level in Shanghai! It has anywhere from local street markets to big, fancy, expensive shopping malls. We have taken a liking to the bigger markets. They sell about anything and it is so fun to bargain. We spent a few days doing this, especially so we could practice our Chinese. I think we will do just fine! Everyone will just have to come visit so they can experience this for themselves!

The LDS Church has a very small presence here in Shanghai. There are two branches with about a 125 people in them. You must be a visa holder to attend these. There is also a smaller group of Chinese that meet, but they can only meet amongst themselves. As for the branch we will be attending, it was about half adults and half kids! We will fit in just fine.

There are many little quirks that we will have to get used to, but for now have gotten a good laugh from it. There are nearly 22 million people around us and yes traffic is heavy, but it still flows. We just close our eyes while riding in a taxi. We must be very careful on the streets and sidewalks or you could easily be run over by a car, bike, or moped.

A few jaunts and then I will be done
Yes, there is a WALMART in Shanghai….definitely Walmart, but geared to the Chinese (so it sells pig feet, chicken feet, and live eel!)
We can buy nearly everything (other than deodorant) here, some it will cost you a bit, but it is available!
Be careful where you step it water on the sidewalk, more than likely it is peepee
The city is beautiful!
We could never make it to all the shopping areas around here
Food is plentiful….anywhere from mere pennies on up, just depending on what you will eat!

Shanghai is the place where our family needs to be at this time in our lives, we know this because we can feel it! We are looking forward to the adventures!

Tim and I will soon head back to the states for just a few months and then we shall return. Morgan can’t wait to hug her girls! She is missing them tons!!!! We are grateful that they could stay with Lil Grandma and Grandpa, Josie, Corde, Julionna, Jeremy, Odessa, and baby Bridger. I know they loved it and will look at me when we are home and ask where all their friends went. I know Adayla was able to stomp on the snow with some snow boots. (The day after we left, they had the biggest blizzard they had seen since moving there!) We have enjoyed our 5 year honeymoon, but I will be so excited to hear their sweet giggles and even a few grumps!

Missing Binx.....

Well we said our sad goodbyes to Binx. It has been much more of adjustment for Morgan than she would like to admit. Tim's goodbye was rushed as he had lots to do as we left him last Thursday morning. But we had the weekend with him and thought for a moment we would have to bring him back with us! Binx is now adjusting, at least we hope he is, to his new home with his cousin Maddox (sp?). Binx growled, barked, and snapped at him if he was with in 15 feet of him. By the time we left on Monday, he would at least tolerate him as long as he didn't jump on his back. But that was only after 5 minutes of barking when Maddox was let out of his kennel. We know Binx is in the best of company and we can't thank them enough for giving him a good home while we are gone. I cried when I had to kiss him bye, which caused Chelsie to start crying, which caused Adayla to tell Chelsie, "Don't cry Chelsie!" Adayla was very sweet about giving him a kiss. She stills remembers Binx in her prayers and when you ask her who she loves, he is near the top of her list. Little Tally is going to miss him too. She loved Maddox quite a bit, as he is closer to her size! Now everytime we see a dog, her little legs get a going! We will see Binx one more time as we drive to Utah, maybe we will just take him with us!

Now on to the rest of the family. Tally's front middle teeth are quickly coming in. It is funny how teeth just take away from being a tiny baby and on to the start of a toddler! She smiles a ton and people are always saying, what a happy baby she is! She loves new things and gets bored easily, so she is always looking for something new to play with. Many times that something new to play with is in one of Adayla's purses....and Adayla isn't so into sharing that part of her stuff. She occasionally spits out food or just won't eat somethings, but overall she puts it away! On the way to Chelsie and Bryan's, I would hand her back some food and then she would start to fuss when it was gone. I would ask her Tally what do you want and she would get her hands saying more please, more please. She understands so much more than we'll ever know. Yesterday she also went over to the bottom of the stairs and just started climbing up them like it was no big deal. It was cute and she was excited about learning something new.

Miss Adayla is more Miss Adayla than ever, she LOVES her purses! Grammy gave her one and we bought one at the store. She has one, if not both, at all times! It makes her mom a bit crazy, but it is cute to see her do everything like a little woman! Tonight Adayla asked Tim when he came home this evening, "how was work?" It is amazing to how much she really listens to. The other day when Morgan went to get a shot, as soon as we got to the place, she starts saying over and over, "I don't want a da zhen!" Once she finally realized Morgan was the only person getting them, she proceeded to tell her Dad about last time she got a da zhen. It hurt and then I burped (barfed) and then I got some new clothes! She also loves to dance with her Daddy. She comes in our room, turns on the music, and says, "Daddy come dance with me!" They hold hands and dance. Mommy tried to dance with her and it wasn't the same.....she let my hands go and insisted Daddy dance with her.

My little blurps on the happenings....
Tim's Falcons didn't make it to the big dance, but were a #1 seed in the NIT. After a few close games, they are going to the final four of the NIT in New York next week. Which would be perfect for Tim, except we have too much going on and Tim sadly won't be able to make it.

Morgan is done nursing and doesn't believe that Tally is nearly 1. (This quitting nursing thing isn't that much fun, especially when you get 4 shots on the same day!) Tally is adjusting well and is drinking from her sippy cup just fine.

Tim just passed his 5 Air Force test!! So only 1 left to go!
We leave for China in less than a week! We have our visas and everything is good to go.
Adayla is very excited to go on the fei ji!
The weather has been warm and so we have been able to spend lots of time at the park.
We sold the green car!! We got what we wanted out of it and sold it to the first lady that looked at it! A huge relief! Tim is looking forward to all the other things I plan on getting rid of (not really!)
And as we were driving home from Chelsie and Bryan's, we were in some small town in the middle of nowhere, Adayla's says very excited, "Mom Look!! There's my green car!" And up in a parking lot on a hill was Adayla's green Camry. As we drive in town, as she sees people's cars that she knows....she'll say there's whoever's car....usually the right model in various colors.

Adayla hasn't forgotten about Grandma Skinner's Lion....get your hand out of my cookie jar, she gets the giggles everytime she hears it!

That is it for now, Timmy is tired, so we must go to bed!

Lots of Things going on.....

The days are going by faster than we like....but I wanted to take a minute to recount a few events. Tim is the forever student, studying both Chinese and his military Major's school (4 test on Monday....2 to go!) But don't worry his makes time for basketball! Sadly he would have more time, but Air Force can't pull it together and lost to that team Wyoming. Now he didn't have to make time to for a game, but he is keeping track of all the other games to see if somehow Air Force can still make it in to the Big Dance.

I haven't had time to tell a few stories about Grammy and Gramps. First, we will say how much we loved having them here. Tonight as we were reading Adayla's Book of Mormon stories, we were talking about Zormamites and the Rameupmtom....she kept saying the Grammeupmtom. It was cute. We asked Adayla what her favorite part of having G&G here and she said, "Dancing with them in the morning!" She would sneak upstairs and get her toy (the steering wheel with transportation noises that Kevin and Spencer used to play with) then push buttons and they would sing the song and do actions with her. Her favorite song is ....Dinah blow your horn....blow your horn and so every morning they would blow their horns together! Adayla also like to pick who was going to say the prayer....everytime it was Grammy!! (which they said was a good balance because Julie always picks Gramps)

We didn't go too many places because they had lived here for such a long time before, they had seen most of the sites. We had leisurely breakfasts and lunches. We drove to thier old houses and they were surprised to see how much had changed. Their were roads where there used to be houses and/or trees. We went to check out Springfield Mall which was The shopping place back then (not so much anymore...). We went to the old ward they left on their mission to. They (including Tim) were able to see many old faces and do a bit of catching up. They all have many fond memories about Lakeridge. We love Grammy and Gramps and added a few more fond memories of our time with them!

Today was Adayla's last day of dance class....: ( She loved every bit about it. She loved her teaches, her friends, the songs, and the dancing. She followed right along with everything her teacher did, some of the girls would get side tracked easily. Adayla would listen and do what Ms. Rachel said...now if we could just get her to do that at home. Her favorites new things she learned were Step-Kick and flex your toes-point your toes. It was good for her to be part of a group, we'll find something later for her to join!

We were late to dance class because Tally had to go to the doctor this morning. Her crooked head is back. It started about 3 days ago. (We noticed it when she was about 4 1/2 months old and took her to the doctor, we did some exercises and it healed very quickly.) So I was shocked to see it back again. The doctor called it Torticollis, essentially she has a bump on one of her muscles and so then she favors to hold her head to the right. So we will do some physical therapy and hopefully it will heal for good. She definitely does not like anyone messing with head, we are supposed to do it about 1 time every hour.

Tally is no longer complete fang woman, she is starting to get her middle teeth on top!! We are going to miss that smile! She continues to eat and eat. She only weighed just under 18 pounds today and the doctor, so she isn't as big as you'd expect! My friend, Crystal has a daughter a few months younger than Tally and gets the biggest kick out of watching that girl put the food away! She did spit something out this week for the first time, we gave her a bit of Tylenol to break a fever, and she wouldn't swallow it for anything. She only has 2 more weeks of the really good food ie. ME! She does her little milk sign, but when she decides it is time to nurse she comes up and starts beating on my chest. Hopefully Little Grandma and Grandpa enjoy her!

Just a few short blurps:
We went to the post office on Monday to apply for the girl's passports....7 people in front of us...we were only there 3 HOURS! (the girls were troopers!!)
Adayla got 2 more da zhen (shots) on Wednesday....not as fun this time, she barfed all over herself afterwards. We had many more errands to do and we were a ways from the house...so she got a new outfit.
We are getting sad as Binx Kuehne has less than a week before his two year vacation to the Waldmanns starts.
We applied for our Chinese visas on Wednesday, the realization that we are moving very soon is coming!
We are prepping for the move, getting rif of this and that, the big project for the week was getting the green car listed. Hopefully we sell it before we go to China in a few weeks.
The girls continue to delight and entertain us!!

Snapshots

Gramps, Grammy, and the girls at George Washington's home (Mt Vernon). We picked a beautiful day to go!

Celebrating Grammy's Birthday, she looks great! We went to Medieval Times to watch the jousting and games along with dinner. We ate with our hands, no spoons or forks involved.
Tally wearing a crown too!
Adayla's first snowman!
Daddy and Adayla with her snowman!

Gramps was lucky enough to read many many books to Adayla. She loved sitting on his chair and snuggling with him.
These are her glasses. You may recognize them from Mr. Potato Head. She wears them frequently.
Grammy and Tally, she was an excellent ham for them!
A busy moment in the life of Adayla, gathering her "Stuff". Her cart is full!
Bathtime buddies!

Tally loves to eat!! More please, more please. When ever we eat, she must eat too! (Even though she may have had a complete meal only moments before.
Bedtime.....
Adayla's first snowstorm, it was very very cold!

Adayla loves to feed Binx, this is a usual outfit for her....snow hat and her cowboy boots!

I will update some more of the weeks events later, but had a moment to add a few shots! Enjoy!