Mullet-Be-Gone!

we did it! we finally rid capri of her mullet! we took her to see the world's greatest beautician, kaley, and she worked her magic to rid our baby girl of her she mullet! at first, she was very scared, so i got in the chair with her, showed her my ring, and the cutting began. she looks so grown up now, and has an attitude to go along with it. she loves to show people her hair and say, "i cute!"




after pictures...isn't she cute!?!

tutu cute

it's a beautiful day, so capri grabbed her tutu and we went outside for some pictures...enjoy






then she decided she was done, and was letting me know about it...diva


"bye bye mama" "c-ya" "all done" (i guess she's trying to tell me something)

why toss a coin in a fountain when you can pray!

i have several things to be thankful for, but today, i am thankful for a new daycare!!! GOD is so good. we have been trying to get capri into carol's daycare for almost two years. people are always telling us how wonderful this woman is, and by the grace of GOD, three weeks ago, we met her. we were sitting next to her at a seminar for over three hours when we realized who she was, after the seminar, we introduced ourselves...not so subtly. i said, 'i've been praying for you!' normally i introduce myself first but hey, i was excited! so today, i phoned her and she has an opening starting june 1st. hooray!!!

let me tell you how wonderful this woman is...she has fostered SEVERAL children in her 22 years as a foster parent. she adopted a girl twenty years ago (named lindsay), and has TONS of experience with kids in foster care. GOD is so amazing how HE works things out. when we told our current daycare provider the news, she was ecstatic because apparently she doesn't feel like daycare is the right thing for her, so again, a GOD thing. we will keep you posted on capri's many adventures at daycare...we know there will be more to come.

Colbie Caillat, Kansas City, & A Cutie

we went to kansas city this weekend to see colbie caillat in concert. capri loved listening to the bubble song, but we were all sad that colbie didn't sing 'capri.' oh well, we will be seeing her again this next friday and have hopes that she will sing it there.

on our trip to kansas city, capri zonked out in the back seat and i had to take some pictures of the sleeping beauty.
(capri sound asleep in the kansas city traffic)


bear made the trip to kansas city too. he even attended the concert and capri was making him dance on daddy and mama's laps. capri treated him like her little baby and was sitting in the back seat of the car giving him drinks from her sippy cup. however, he didn't get to play in the fountain with capri and daddy. (sorry, i didn't have my camera for that...i know...i'm bummed too.)

all in all, it was a great weekend with only a few minor meltdowns...which is pretty good considering we are officially a professional fit thrower! further blogs on being 2 to follow.

"i biva"

sunglasses have become capri's new best friend. she loves them...indoors and out. the other day we were walking out of the house and a neighbor saw her with her sunglasses on and said, 'she sure does look cute in those glasses' to which i replied, 'yeah, she's quite the diva.' (mistake #1)

capri kept saying 'i biva' over and over. we went to her appointment, i set her on the counter and the lady at the desk said 'hi sweetie, how are you?' capri looked at her, pushed up her sunglasses and said with her chest puffed out...'i biva.' the lady looked perplexed, i then explained that my ever so confident daughter finds herself to be a diva. the lady said, 'well she sure is a diva, check out those glasses.'(mistake #2) capri then lowered her glasses, looked over the top and said, 'hey baby!' oh good grief what have we gotten ourselves into!?!

control freak

i don't know what it is, but i have the hardest time with not being in control. i didn't always used to be like this, don't get me wrong, i love organization, but i never used to, my room was a mess, under my bed...i don't even want to talk about that. but now, i go nuts when my house is out of order, and crazier still when my child isn't in a "controlled" environment.

we went to the zoo today, it was wonderful and quite enjoyable until capri decided she wanted out of her stroller...'i out' she said over and over. finally i gave in and auntie laura pushed the stroller while i chased the 2 year old. it wasn't until about 15 minutes of this that i looked at laura and said, 'i never knew how much of a control freak i am.' laura just looked at me and laughed, apparently she knew.

it is amazing to me that after two years of watching GOD unfold this beautiful package that is 'parenthood,' i am still trying to grab it back from HIM. i need to let go and allow HIM to take capri in HIS arms. HE is guiding her every step, not me.

PAUL!

capri loves paul, and she loves to call him daddy, but a funny thing has happened lately. "daddy" has become "paul." now, i know that all kids go through this whole calling the parents by their name thing, but capri has taken it even further. she only calls him 'paul' when he isn't present or she can't see him.

here are a couple examples: capri is put down for her nap, we hear the pitter patter of little feet, then we hear her at the gate at the top of the stairs, "hi!" if we say nothing, we hear, "PAUL!!!!" this of course puts us in a fit of giggles. she sounds exactly like me when i'm upstairs and i holler down to him. i wouldn't call it yelling, just really loud talking. i know that we don't help the situation by our laughing, but it is so funny to hear.

the other night paul went into the kitchen and asked if i needed anything, i hollered back, "no, i'm good." however, capri needed a drink, so she turns her head toward the kitchen and hollered, "PAUL!!!" from the kitchen we hear, "yes, pri?" to which capri says, "a dink." so ever so obedient daddy/paul comes in with a drink for his little girl with a big smile on his face. capri then looks up at daddy and says, "it daddy." since she can see him, he becomes daddy again - it's her own way of thinking to say the least.

i bowvow

the secret's out, capri is officially addicted to wheel of fortune. over the past two years, capri as been an avid wheel watcher, she loves to watch 'pat' and claps whenever people solve the puzzle. she enjoys saying 'hi pat' and 'bye pat' (followed by blowing him a kiss) thus we are already concerned about her taste in men. she could care less about vanna white and all of the people on the show...it's all pat...all the time. she wakes up after naps talking about pat so we know she is dreaming about him...yikes!

so, with that being said, let's talk about last weekend. we took a family trip to the zoo and could hear capri in the back seat saying the same thing over and over again. we are always having her repeat things because she is still pretty hard to understand at times. she kept saying, 'i bowvow' when we would have her repeat it, it would come out the exact same way, 'i bowvow.' finally we gave up and said, 'honey, we don't know what word you are saying.' she of course moved on and didn't really speak the hidden word again.

monday evening, while paul was out for devotions, i was sitting with the little wheel watcher and she was completely drooling over pat. one of the contestants, from alabama kept buying vowels, to which capri would look at me and say 'i bowvow." finally it dawned on me...SHE WANTED TO 'BUY A VOWEL'!

does anyone speak two year old? i need an interpreter.

"I BIG"

this weekend capri decided it was time to become a big girl and start sleeping in her big girl bed. on saturday night, i said let's get ready for bed, she climbed up into her big girl bed, hunkered down, and said, "migh might." i covered her up and she zonked right out. when she woke up on sunday morning, she sat in her room reading books until mommy and daddy woke up. when paul went in to get her she said, 'big bed' 'big girl' 'i big!' we headed off to church and she of course announced to everyone, 'i big!' she was so proud of herself, i of course cried on saturday night realizing that my baby girl is in fact big.

so this morning, i went in to see my sleeping beauty before we went to daycare, at some point during the night, she got out of bed to read, as books were EVERYWHERE! however, i found her standing up next to her bed, with her head on the bed, snoring away and drooling. i was turning to get my camera and she woke up and said, 'i read.' i said 'yes capri, i see that, and did you sleep good?' she looked at me, puffed out her chest and shook her head yes and said with a big grin. "i big mama!"

UNEXPECTED BLESSINGS

WE FOUND OUT TODAY THAT CAPRI'S PARENTS SIGNED OVER THEIR RIGHTS THIS MORNING. WE CAN NOW MOVE FORWARD WITH THE ADOPTION PROCESS. SUCH A HAB. 1:5 KIND OF DAY...WATCH, AND BE UTTERLY AMAZED, FOR I AM GOING TO DO SOMETHING IN YOUR DAY YOU WOULD NOT BELIEVE, EVEN IF YOU WERE TOLD"

THANK YOU GOD FOR UNEXPECTED BLESSINGS, WORDS DO NOT EXPRESS OUR GRATITUDE

Praise Him!

we had court this morning, and it was short and SWEET! the judge scheduled a 2 day termination trial for april 15-16th. usually this is scheduled about 4-6 months down the road but he wanted to expedite things since it's all dragged on so long. we are praising GOD that things went so smoothly. we will continue to keep you posted.

what we've been up to

just an update on how the case is progressing. we go to court next week for what is being called a permanency planning/pre-termination trial. basically the parties will go before the judge and present why termination needs to occur. then, it's our understanding, if the judge accepts the reasons, he will set up a termination hearing down the road and rights will be terminated. so we are going in the right direction.

please continue to pray that all parties involved will do what they need to do before court. we've had a lot of feet dragging and had to babysit a few of the people involved, as this is "just another case" to them.

another change this week is capri will be starting a new daycare next week. with great sadness (see picture of capri crying), we said our goodbye's to debbie and roger, capri's daycare providers. they have made a huge impact on capri's life. they have helped so much with encouraging her as well as us. it will be a big adjustment, but we have found a provider that we feel has a heart for children as well. also, noah, another young boy from capri's current daycare, will be attending the new one so as capri says, "my buddy" will be there.

we will continue to keep you all posted as things change. thank you again for your prayers and encouragement.

Scrapbook

Make a scrapbook - it's easy!

I Need A Time Out!

so...we've started using time out with capri because she's starting to test us more and we came to the conclusion that time out would work best for her, and us as well. this weekend was our first time out weekend, and we decided that we were going to stick to our guns and put capri in time out for 1 minute whenever she did something that she wasn't supposed to (i.e. shutting the door to the bathroom and fishing in the toilet...ahh parenting!)

it went something like this...

(door shutting...water splashing...something going kerplunk)

"capri linay...you'd better not be in that bathroom"
(bathroom door is shut...silence from the other side)

"alright young lady, you're going in time out."
(escort 2 year old out of the bathroom, into the kitchen, and place said 2 year old on the mat in front of the sink with her back to the counter...this is THE SPOT designated by us)

"capri, i want you to sit on this time out mat for 1 minute, on your bottom, and i will set the timer. if you get up, we start over again"
(blank stare)

"bottom, mama"

"yes, on your bottom"

"bottom"

"yes, on your bottom"
(this conversation drags on for several minutes)

"okay capri, you may get up, what do you say to mama?"

"soggy, mama"
(i take no offense to this, i know she isn't calling me soggy, at least i don't think she is.)


so, two days, and several episodes from above later...

(door shutting, very quietly...no splashing...Thank GOD)

"capri linay, if you are..."
(mid sentence...door opens, 2 year old comes out, plops down in THE SPOT, and looks at the clock, sighing loudly)

"good girl, you sit there for one minute"
(i begin unloading the dishwasher and look down at THE SPOT...2 year old is scooting across the floor on the time out mat...ON HER BOTTOM)

I NEED A TIME OUT!

January Update

we are please to say that capri's visits with her bio parents have been cancelled! she will only have one more visit and that will be when they say goodbye to her, after rights are severed. she continues to have visitation with her grandparents until rights are severed, so please keep these visits in your prayers as they are once a month and are not monitored.

we head to court next month for what is still being called a "review." and we are being told that things will continue to drag out as parents are pulling more "legal strings." we feel confident that, although it could take some time, we are still heading in the right direction.

your continued prayers are requested as we endure the journey that GOD has chosen for us.