Gone swimming

With Little newborn Petunia and Honey in a cast; Pumpkin got some one on one with mom at Heather's parent's pool.  She was soaking in all of the attention and we had so much fun! 

This girl is SLATHERED in sunscreen.  

 Check list for a good time.

#1 ice- check

#2 mom- check

#3 dogs- check

#4 pool- check

#5 totally awesome friend- check

It really is so nice to be able to spend one on one with the kids.  One of the reasons we take them on dates.

I handed the camera over to Pumpkin. These are gems she took.

 Lovely! 

 pruney toes.  The best. 

Coming soon...

Welp, I'm all in.  A few days ago bmom and I started texting heavily. 

She REALLY reminds me of my sister.

As guarded as I tried to be with this adoption (which I hated), that's out the window. 

I am all in. I am so excited to hold our son. I can't wait to bring him home for good.  I know there is still a 50% chance this could fall through.  She hasn't gone through the hardest part and it's going to be especially hard on her.  

As excited as I am to know our son, I am equally as excited to have this amazing woman as part of our family. Adoption is hard, there are so many chances for heartache. But I would rather be there whole heartily for her no matter what choice she ultimately makes. 

I am in love with our son. I am in love with the birth parents. 

I really really really hope to be there for the delivery.  I doubt she will want me in the room, although I hope, but I pray she wants us physically in the hospital.  I don't care if I'm waiting in the most uncomfortable chair ever.  I don't care if I have to stand all 24+ hours.  

If something goes wrong with her, or with him, I want to be there. 

I also want to respect her space and I know I could miss signals of overstepping space. 

Bmom sent me a link to her vlogs.  I started watching them dating back a year.  The only break I took was to watch L*ve in the Wi*ld.  I really love that show, but wish they would bring back Best Friend's Forever.  Anyway, it really is such an amazing gift to be able to show our son when he's older.  "This is what your birth parents went through for you.  How lucky are you to have such an amazingly loving family."  It was really fun.  I could see so much and I feel like I lived through the pregnancy.  (I know I could never understand what a struggle they went through. But it was amazing to see).   

So that's where we are.  Our son will be here soon. We are so in love. We are so blessed.

Someone got her hair did

This was Honey's first time to the salon. The Hubs, Mimi, and Aunt Carrie took her while I stayed home with a weird sickness, Pumpkin, and Petunia. 

Now up until this point I learned everything I knew about black hair from online, despite having gone to cosmetology school.  I kid you not, I didn't have a single black person while in school.  I would have loved to have learned.  Of course we learned the basics about porosity, texture, etc

Also, one of the teacher's from Honey's school came to "help me with her hair".  I LOVE that and am SOOOO grateful for Ms V.  I told her I want her to be a permanent member in Honey's life so she could have a strong, positive black woman to look up to. And for the woman who stopped me at T*rget. 

Anyway, Honey's hair is FRIZZY!!!! No matter what I do, that's just her hair.  She doesn't really have a curl pattern to it.  It is tighter than corkscrew. 

But no matter what I did it looked unkept. Even minutes after it was done. 

I talked about it with MsV and for a while she thought it was something I was using on her hair.  We came to the conclusion that that's her hair. 

So anyway, since her arm is broken it was the perfect time to have her hair professionally styled.  This way I could tell if I was doing something wrong, and we wouldn't have to mess with it while she was in her cast. 

First off, a black salon is NOT run the same way a white salon is.  I never make appointments in advance.  I have 2 main people who cut my hair (up until this last cut; now I'm on the hunt) and I could always call the day of and one of the 2 could get me in. 

So the day I wanted to get her hair done, I called around and called around.  There wasn't a receptionist for the stylists you had to call the one person in the salon that did braids.  Most of the people I talked to were booked for the day and the other people didn't call me back. 

Finally, we got in.  Only hours later called to see if we could do it later.  I said yes because I was desperate to get her hair done. It was dinner time and she goes to bed almost immediately afterwards. 

Mimi sang our stylist praises.  And she told me that she was going to start a workshop for transracial families.  I told her I knew quite a few families that would 100% be there.  I hope she calls me when/ if she does it. 

I asked for micro-box-braids all over.  My guess is that she knew how much longer that was going to take so she cornrowed the front.  I didn't want that just because I knew it would look frizzy right away. 

But she said, "She (meaning me) needs to embrace the frizz.  She thinks black women are going to judge her."  Damn, how did she know that?!?!  hhhahaaa 

The truth of the matter is that I do get judged.  So far only in the most polite ways, but I have had a number of people ask me what I use in her hair to be shocked at my answer and knowledge.  I know I need to learn so much more.  But I do wish she had the hair that was just beautiful bouncy natural curls.  I LOVE her afro. But man, that's work to keep up too. 

So she cornrowed the front and did regular, not micro, box braids in the back. 

It was cute, but immediately frizzy.  Sorry Honey, I hope one day you can learn how to subdue those boogers.  Or better yet, embrace them. 

 Our plan was to keep this in until her cast came off, but we were supposed to have a impromptu photo shoot that got cancelled the day of.  After I took the braids out. By that point the frizz was out of control and not in any way picture ready. 

Italian Festival

As you know, my granny is an Italiano. 

She is in an Italian club that has members who are all from the same city in Italy. 

Well, they've kind of expanded to any Italian or a wife of any Italian since their original group started to die out. Gosh that sounds morbid. 

I regret that I didn't get my camera out sooner and take a picture of their booth.  

They make a lot of money selling homemade cookies and cannolis. 

Here is our sweet clumsy Honey.  

Before she got her official cast she had to wear a wrap to make sure any swelling had time to go down.  

We put a sock over it so she wouldn't unwrap it. 

And we put a sock around the neck to try and make it a little more comfortable. She hates the sling.

 Yukon and Penny made it up with their dad. 

 Oh my sweet girls. Your smiles bring me the greatest happiness. 

 Honey totally dissed Uncle Randy and his friend Anna in the high five department.  

Well, I guess it would have been pretty difficult to high five with her left hand.

 Pumpkin wanted this inflatable snake sword like nobody's business. 

Mom and dad are mean and were not going to pay for junk that she would only play with for 1/2 of a day.  We are like that in general with toys.  I'm sure some people would think my kids are deprived since they don't have anything that lights up or makes noise. 

 Anna and Joe weren't having it though.  

He went in there and won my Pumpkin her toy. 

 My distant cousins own the best gelato in our area.  Uncle Randy treated the girls to Mango.

I HATE mango.  But I'm not kidding, this is delicious. 

Every flavor I've had from them is amazing. 

 Randy also thought they HAD to have this poster.  I told him over and over no...

He didn't listen.

Petunia and I pose (she's in the sling) 

I LOVE HER!!! 

She was pissed that I took a picture so close.  

She always gets mad at me for being so close. She has serious boundary issues.  ahhaha But the real reason she doesn't like close ups is because "it makes her look old".  It doesn't matter how many times I tell her she looks old because she is old. 

Fact, she was my matron of honor and I told her she couldn't be in the wedding with dyed hair. 

If it wasn't for that she would still be coloring her hair. 

No children please

I did not want kids at my wedding.  They are loud. They cry. They get bored very easily.  Plus I wasn't going to pay full price for a dinner that they weren't going to eat. This is why I  NEVER take offense to a wedding invite that doesn't include my children.  But sometimes when your best babysitter is also going to the wedding, you are out of luck and you have to bring them... even if they weren't invited. hahahahhah 

 Needless to say we had to leave about 2 minutes into the ceremony

We made it back for dinner 

 The Great Grandparents we don't see often enough.

 But had to leave before the dancing started.

Dang kids...