Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving from Arizona!

Where's the turkey?
Full bellies and way past our bedtime.
Love to everyone...

Adventures in Florida

Rylie and I just got back from a wonderful "Girls Only" trip to Florida to visit my grandmother, Rylie's Gigi. Rylie had a great time and especially enjoyed all of the attention from my grandmother's friends. She loved looking out of my grandmother's sun room on the water and kept pointing and saying, "more water, more water, more water." Yes, quite a change from the desert :-)

Rylie & Gigi

Even though we were there for five days, I tried to keep Rylie on Arizona time. This made for some really late nights of entertaining Rylie in Gigi's condo. Definitely lots of Mommy & Rylie bonding time. We got pretty creative- Rylie even made a slide out of the recliner.

While we were in Ft. Lauderdale, we had a special treat of getting to visit with Jennifer and Max Axtell. Max and Rylie were in the same room in the Astana Baby House, and Jennifer & Tim traveled to Astana shortly after we came home. It was a very special treat to meet Jennifer and see Max again. After a little snack and some bubbles, the two kids really warmed up to each other. While they clearly do not understand the significance of their history and bond, it was certainly not lost on myself, Jennifer, or my grandmother and her friends. Everyone was amazed that out of a room of eight children, here were two of them, sitting together playing halfway around the world less than a year later. We loved getting to visit with Jennifer & Max and really hope to see them again soon!

We had another special treat on our way home as we had a brief layover in Tampa, which obviously meant a visit with Susan and Leeza. The girls had a lovely tea party in the Tampa airport terminal and snacked on some goodies Susan provided. While the girls will undoubtedly be lifelong friends (Susan and I will make sure of that!) I am not sure that Rylie made such a good first impression. Leeza is very sweet and dainty, and Rylie is anything but dainty. I love my pumpkin dearly, but if I had to list 500 words to describe her, dainty would not be one of them, bulldozer perhaps, but not dainty. That being said, the girls share a common love of puffs, cereal bars, and tea parties. We had a wonderful, but way too short, visit, and cannot wait to see them again soon!

In other news, Rylie's newest standard phrase is as follows: "My ____, mine." For example, she will pick up her cup and say, "Mama, my cup, mine." or "My Elmo, mine." It is like she says the mine for reinforcement or something. I usually remind her that yes, the item is her's, but it is nice to share our toys with our friends. The cutest was this morning when I came into the room and she ran over and said, "My mommy, mine." Honestly.... the cutest.

Love to everyone...