Well I'm back at work and the earth is still revolving...nothing stopped:)

Kacey had a great day at home with Nana and Pop Pop and according to reports as of 10AM today she's having a good day #2! They stayed nice and busy yesterday and except for naptime Kacey was picture perfect, when it was time to go to bed she wanted her Mommy but happily settled for a nap with Pop in the recliner...hmmmm do you think she may have an ulterior motive? She also pitched a little fit at Target and my Mom and Dad BOTH had to take her into the family restroom, those of you who know my Dad can imagine what he thought of having to go the family restroom, but for Kacey anything is possible I only wish I had pictures!

The best part of the day was when I got home from work, she was very glad to see me but not at all mad, sad or dramatic it was like I'd just run to the grocery store and come back, she played with me my Mom and Dad like it was any other day. My next worry was that she wouldn't go to bed well at night but once again I was wrong, we did the night night ritual and she was fast asleep by 8:15 (I was asleep by 8:45) and only woke up once at 2AM, I'll be glad when she starts sleeping all the way through the night, she's only awake for 5-10 minutes getting settled back to sleep but I can't get back to sleep for an hour when she wakes up and 5:30AM come awfully early!

It's amazing how adaptable children are, once again Kacey adjusted immediately and Mom was the one all sad and worried. Day 2 I'm nice and calm and getting all caught up at work which makes one happy Mommy.

Happy Halloween from Minnie Mouse and her family!

Wendy and I make sure all is well in the backyard!

The mommies and their little gobblins! Don't forget you can double click for a better look at the photos.

Here I am with my "scary" shirt!

This baby is going to get fat eating all these bottles!

I just can't get enough of these lollypops! Looks like I'll need clean PJ's.

Thanks Daphne & family I love my new babydoll!

This is my friend Emily, not a REAL ladybug!

Love my costume, even the ears!

Here's my friends Chloe & Liza at our first Halloween Party, we had SO much fun!

I think I like this Halloween thing!

This is an oldie but goldie from Kacey's first weekend home!

Amelia the good witch after surgery, looking GOOD!

FINALLY a big smile for Mom's camera, I think it may have been an accident :)

Mom and I even got to hang out with Big Bird

Check out the beautiful cakes that Aunt Vickie made for me...they were almost too pretty to eat ALMOST!

It was great to see Katie and Donna!

I even got a fairy princess castle, how is Mom going to pack that?

Sam and Adam let me put stuff on their heads anytime I want to, how COOL!

I got the funniest green guy for my birthday!

This bucket used to be for party beverages now it's for Kacey to sit in and store her toys. What a difference a toddler makes:)

Hi everyone did you miss us? Kacey and I were on a most excellent adventure to visit Nana and PopPop in Florida and the Larkins, Millianos & Schoenings in St. Louis and boy did we have some fun! It's going to be tough to explain to Kacey that you really are only supposed to have 1 birthday party each year not one in every city you visit :) The good news, she is a terrific traveler even the business guys on the plane complimented me on her behavior I was sweating like crazy from trying to keep her happy but I guess it was worth it. We took 4 flights and she slept on 2 and played on the other 2, I pick the sleeping!

We started our trip in Florida with a visit with the S. Florida FCC gang, we got to play with Katie Starr, Mia, Molly (visiting from Texas), Lily and all our other buddies at their monthly Chinese dinner. Kacey was a bit freaked out at the beginning with 90 people running around her but with a little help from watermelon, ice cream and candy she came right along! They had trick-or-treating and she didn't quite get the concept, she just kept taking her candy out of her bag and giving it to the other kids...all except those suckers she wouldn't let those out of her sight!

The next day we got to go to the beach and visit with Uncle Kevin and Aunt Donna and their friends. It was a beautiful day and Kacey LOVED the water, the sand she could have done without but she thought the waves and clear ocean water were terrific. You should have seen my brother loading her up with SPF50 lotion, it looked like she had a coat of armor on :) After the sun and fun we headed out with them to lunch, Kacey loves Chinese food and we went to PF Changs so all was right with the world!

That evening we had birthday party #2 at Nana's house, lots of her friends from work came by along with the neighbors and our good friends the Blasuccis. It was so fun and Kacey loved opening her presents, I'm going to need a bigger house for all of this stuff.

I'll have to post the pictures from this part of the trip later in the week because they are on my Mom's camera and her cord is up here :(

Next we headed to St. Louis for birthday party #3 at Bob's house! Everyone was there and Kacey played so hard with the kids that she couldn't catch her breath she was running so fast around the backyard. They threw leaves at each other and every ball that they could find, she is most fond of young people and that counts teenagers too she just seems drawn to them and it doesn't take her any time to warm up as opposed to "big people". There were younguns a plenty on this part of the trip and she had a ball. Once again there were tons of GREAT presents and she loved them and the tissue paper, boxes & bows :)

We got to see our friends Donna and Katie on this trip too, Katie came home from China 6 years ago and it was wonderful to see how big she's gotten and how darned cute!

Traveling is great but there's no place like home! I'm on the last week of my leave from work so my Mom and Dad will be here on Thursday to get Kacey ready for the change. I know that she will be fine home with them, it's me I'm worried about.

What a weekend, Kacey was 2 and we had so much fun! Her party was Saturday and we went shopping and out to lunch to celebrate her "real" birthday on Sunday. We sure missed Nana & PopPop and wish all our travel mates lived closer so they could be her too!

I've been struggling on what to write on this big day and everything I came up with was so darned mushy that I kept going back to the drawing board, then I realized it...I'm just mushy about my sweet girl and there's no way around it!!!

I'm certainly one of the luckiest people on the planet to have been matched with my girl and while I'm still sad about the time that we missed together we are making up for it at warp speed. She is the absolute love of my life and watching her have such a blast at her party made my day, week, year! She was strutting around this house, giving orders, meeting people at the door and giggling until she couldn't catch her breath :) Every single day I think I love her as much as I possibly can and then the next day here comes a little more, I'm not sure I'm a love at first sight kind of girl so it makes perfect sense that our love grows larger with the time we are together. Before she went to bed on Saturday I was putting on her PJ's and telling her how happy I was to have her as my family and she just stopped what she was doing (squirming) and grabbed my face for a big kiss, I'm sure she had no idea what I was saying but it must have been the tone of my voice that started the love fest!

Someone at the mall today said how "lucky" she was to come here to live and I told them with all certainty that I am the "lucky" one, she has brought such joy to my life that I will forever be grateful. Don't worry, I'm still tired and my back and arms are killing me but it's a good pain, like a badge of mommy courage. As my friend, Mom of a 7 year old told me today "the next thing you know she'll be too busy for you you won't know what to do with yourself"--for that day I can wait!

Happy Birthday sweet girl, your Mommy (and your entire family) loves you so much and can't wait to celebrate everyday with you!

Here I am headed out for a great day!

I got a little love from Danielle and an extra scoop of ice cream!

Even Kevin came in from Hong Kong for lunch, Hi Kevin! Can't wait to see Sharon at my birthday party :)

Crazy noodle girl is BACK!

Spaghette & Meatballs, yum, yum!

A great way to start the big day! I'm a Southern girl I LOVE my grits!

This telephone talks to me, how cool is that!

I got this GREAT outfit from my Aunt & Uncle in Tampa along with new PJ's and another outfit. Thanks to Bettye, Dicky, Ricky, Bryan, Carla, Mark, Analisa, JD, Misty, Bradley, Brett, Jack & Makayla. Wow, I'm a lucky girl to have such a wonderful family.

Thanks for the birthday books Aunt Gerry I LOVE them!

Can you believe we've been home for 2 weeks today? Me neither, seems like just yesterday some days and like she's been with me forever other days! So how did we celebrate this wonderful day...we went for Kacey's well-baby doctors' appointment that's what we did! Not much fun for either one of us but Kacey checked out like a champ and made her Mom very happy. She had to get 4 shots that all 2 year olds get and she got weighed and measured too, she's 22.4 lbs (5th percentile) and 32.75" long (25th percentile) according to Dr. W she looks very healthy and she is not at all concerned about her weight. We've just got to keep feeding her all the healthy foods that she likes and add a multi-vitamin everyday to add some extra calcium! Only her language seems to be a bit delayed but once again according to the good Doctor she seems to be catching up quickly and probably will not need additional therapy :)

A BIG thanks to Lisa S. who joined me at my appointment to act as scribe while I dealt with the princess and her intense dislike for all things "doctor & nurse", we went next door for Chinese food afterward and you'd have thought we were never even at the doctor Kacey was starving and yum-yummed her way through wonton soup, chicken lo mein and 1/2 an eggroll, nothing hurts her appetite that's for sure!

We also had some fun today (before the appointment), we went to Mom's office to visit and got tons of attention and love from all my office mates! Kacey chose not to get down but did enjoy all the love, she blew kisses, said bye-bye to everyone and even gave out a few hugs from the safety of my arms.

I told Lisa today that every single day is something new with Kacey she just seems to blossom right before my very eyes. She is such a funny girl and she knows it, while fighting sleep every night she blows rasberries into the crib rails and just cracks herself up, it's all I can do not to laugh and blow my cover of sleeping :) Her other favorite thing to do is to pick up any instruction book she can find and read it to me with all the energy she's got, she points at the pictures and tries to tell me all about it! She doesn't do that with her picture books but the carseat installation book is fascinating reading to her I guess or maybe she's just trying to teach her old Mom a new trick. We also had a big milestone last night while eating at Jason's with Danielle & Peyton (Tim is out of town) I actually went to the salad bar by myself, can you believe it, all by myself! Kacey sat in her booster seat and with only a brief protest, Danielle said she did give her quite a dirty look at the beginning but then happily munched her muffin and waited for me, when I went back at the end of meal promising her some ice cream she all but pushed me out of the booth :)

This weekend is her 2nd birthday and I'm having a little party for her, I'm taking the easy way out and ordering everything from Publix and my local BBQ joint. I was nervous about doing it but with the wonderful support of all my friends I know it will be a great success and that Kacey will enjoy herself, certainly she'll enjoy the ice cream which is her very favorite treat!

More soon, thanks for stopping by!

There's Mommy again! All I do is call her from the tube and she appears.

She enjoys every single moment on the swing!

This would be a great picture if not for the dirt below her eye, she has to pick up every single stick in the park!

This is fun, Mommy is always on the other end I wonder how she gets there?

Here she is! I'm having trouble with BLOGGER photo so to make this photo bigger just double click on it.

Yeah, yeah I know it's only 8:50PM but I haven't been up this late in weeks but I have BIG NEWS! Miss Kacey sat in a booster seat at the Taco Bell tonight, she just sat down and ate her dinner like she's been doing it her entire life, Danielle, Peyton and I were just baffled! I promise I try (and have tried) the high/booster chair every single meal every single place we eat but there is a meltdown of epic proportion just looking at "the chair" so I've just let it go but tonight she was ready. Just to make sure it wasn't a fluke I brought her home and offered her a watermelon dessert in her booster here at the house, she thought about protesting for a moment then remembered how fun it is not to eat in Mom's lap with her cleaning you up every 2 seconds that she jumped right in.

What do I think brought on this minor miracle, well I think it was 2 things first we had a playdate at Jill's today and Levi was sitting on a booster having quite the good time with lunch and Kacey was very interested in what he was doing, not interested enough to sit in it but at least she was looking then at the Bell she had Danielle and Peyton across from her talking to her and we all acted like it was nothing so she was fine! Just to let you know she still can put away the food she had rice, beans, taco meat and some sweet dessert that Peyton shared with her :) No I NEVER promised not to let my kids eat fast food, I'm all about moderation and Taco Bell. I was the one who would NEVER let my kid go out dirty, note the dirty shirt and face, I've swallowed more words and owe more apologies to my Mom friends than anyone in history :)

Well I better get up to bed, Kacey & I slept from 8:30PM until 8:30AM last night with only 2 minor wake-ups and I think our wonderful day is in large part due to both of us being so well rested.

More from the mommy front tomorrow, we are going to Peyton's elementary school for lunch...should be fun!

Two people, one camera both not happy to pose for me. Oh well, they had fun even they don't look like it!

Bob got Kacey a great new wagon for her birthday. She even let him pull her around the house and now I have to pull her around everywhere! We are ready for trick r treating!!!

After the pumpkin hunt we got to SWING!

Heavy but perfect!

This is the perfect one!

How do they smell? Not like much of anything.

Pumpkin fun with Peyton!

She and Bob were picking out the very best pumpkins and chucking the others with a very loud "yuck"!

Not real sure about the hayride out to the pumpkin patch.

Let's celebrate one week with a popscicle!

Don't want to miss anything.

Cleaning up after the treat.

About Me

Name: Julie

Location: Florida, United States

I'm a single mom living in Florida with the greatest daughter EVER from Anhui, China. The site keeps our family & friends up to speed on our day to day doings.

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