Calendar Girl

Christmas is over, but I just have not had the time to post anything.
Between, well, Christmas (trying to prepare, have and then recuperate from that) trying to restore the things I lost on my computer, doctor's appts, wrestling, the new puppy and life in general - I've been busy.

Leila had her yearly check-up in Columbus on the 22nd with the cleft team.
She has one tooth that has a cavity in it.
Actually it's only part of a tooth - it's the one beside the hole in her gum.
I don't think it has enamel on part of it, which would definitely help explain the cavity.
We're going back to Columbus in Jan to have that tooth fixed.
Yeah, I know it's a children's hospital and all that.
I know they're used to working with kids.
BUT, having her mouth messed with is not something she's particularly fond of.
They said they don't plan to put her to sleep, so we'll see how that goes.
Other than that - she's good to go for another year.

Christmas was good.
We went to my aunt and uncle's for Christmas Eve.
Christmas morning and afternoon was spent here at home, and then we went to Mom and Dad's for Christmas night.

Leila liked it, but I think next year, she'll 'get' it more.
I have a feeling, she'll be really wild then.
She does love the candy though.
Getting her to eat 'real' food is turning out to be a bit of a fight when there's still so much Christmas candy in the house.
Santa also left candy canes on the tree. It sure didn't take long for her to find those either.
It was just too neat being able to pick one off your own personal candy tree anytime.
After a day of that, we had to take them all off and hide those.

We got our annual 2010 calendar from America World.
(Our adoption agency sends out a calendar each year to all AWAA families, and in the fall, you have the opportunity to submit your child's picture for the calendar contest.)
Leila's picture is on Dec! She's not the big picture for the month, but she's one of the little pictures along the bottom of the page.
I love getting the calendar with all the cute kids anyway - and I think it's really nice that our agency does that.
But it was extra nice this year, to have our little 'calendar girl' in it.


Christmas Sunday


Cookies for Santa


Stocking Time


Our Princess


A New Game for Darrell


A New Hat for Austin

Wild Weekend

Wow, we surely had an exciting weekend.

I haven't been able to post until now though, because my computer crashed (again).
It's a good thing my husband works on a computers for a living, but on the downside - by the time he gets done with work - working on MY computer is the last thing he wants to do.
At this point, I'm partially up and running again.
I have some things back, but not everything.

Austin had a big wrestling tournament on Fri and Sat.
The team took 1st (again), and Austin took 3rd!
However ... in doing so - he got his top front tooth knocked out!
(And oh how 'wonderful', the kid that took out his tooth, also took 1st place in his weight class.)
Austin stopped the match for a minute and gave his tooth to the coach to hold so he could finish.
They put it in milk, and he brought it home that night.
(That's something everyone should know BTW: if you ever get a tooth knocked out, put it in milk. It will keep the nerves alive until you can get to the dentist.)
We went to the dentist first thing Mon morning and thankfully, he was able to reattach it! WOW.

We also had a pretty good snow come thru on Fri night.
We got up Sat morning to about 5 inches.
I asked David to drive me in to the wrestling, because I didn't want to drive in it. (My car's not 4-wheel drive, and I'm a chicken.)

Austin's youth group went black-light bowling on Sun afternoon, and Darrell and I went to a Christmas comedy play.
Daddy stayed home with Leila.

Due to the backroads still having snow and ice on them, school was cancelled on Mon.
We took the opportunity to go Mon afternoon and pick up our new puppy!
Yep, we decided to get him.
Maybe we're just crazy, but David and I are both suckers for dogs.
(And hey, it's cheaper than another kid.)
Meet Zeus:


He's a cute little fuzzball.
He turned 6 weeks old on Tues.
He's relatively small now, but he sure won't be for long.
His daddy's head came up to the hood on the truck.
Sable (the Alaskan Malamute) seems to be tolerating him rather well, but Bailey (the Cocker Spaniel) is not happy about the new addition at all.
He's probably thinking - oh no, not again!

A Dog?

Austin is having a hard time with wrestling this year.
They have a new coach. He's tough on them - very tough.
As much as I liked the old coach, I don't think he always pushed them as hard as they needed.
I think this new guy may be pushing them a little too hard at times.
For instance, the week of Thanksgiving - there was no school all week.
And yet, they had practice every day (even Sat) except for Thanksgiving day itself.
Then, this past weekend when they went to the beach - they were gone from 6 AM on Thurs morning until 10:30 PM on Sun night.
I thought they would at least have the following Mon off. Nope - practice as usual.
I think there's a fine line between not hard enough and too hard.
Yes, I think he's going to take a great team and make them fantastic.
But...will it be at the expense of their morale, their drive, their hearts?

Austin has been wrestling for 11 years now. That's a long time.
He's saying now that he's going to finish the season because he's already started it, but he's no longer sure he wants to wrestle again next year.
I'm not okay with that.
After 11 years - 1000's of hours - bathtubs full of sweat ... to not do it his senior year???
No way!
That's supposed to be his 'glory' year.
That's when it all pays off, and he's supposed to reap some of the privileges and benefits.
I SO want him to see this all the way thru to the end.
I'd even be willing to bribe him at this point to achieve that.

You see - Austin's dream dog is a Great Pyrenees.
He's wanted one for at least 2 years now.
And it just so happens that when we were doing Leila's 6 month speech evaluation last week, it came up in conversation that Mrs. Lisa has a friend that has Great Pyrenees puppies right now.
They're full-blooded, but not registered, so the price isn't unreasonable.
Hmmm, is this fate? Is it maybe meant to be?
Are we absolutely nuts though to even consider the possibility of adding yet another animal to our menagerie?
Any thoughts???

On a lighter note, Courtney came on Sun to keep Leila while we went to the play.
Leila wanted her to sit on the couch with her and hold her hand.
We're thinking that she's imitating Austin and Kelsie.
How cute.
BUT, I told them that if she starts copying anything else - they're in trouble.

Leila and I both had our hair trimmed today.
After she trimmed it, Kim took a curling iron and put curls all over Leila's head.
It was just too cute.
(Sort of reminded me just a little bit of Emmi's wig on Gotcha Day.)
And Leila loved the extra primping and prissing she got.

Santa Claus

We started out this past week with company.
David's mom and her husband came to visit.
They were here from Sunday until Thursday.

I got my car back on Thurs too.
I'm SO glad. I missed it.
Now we just need Austin's truck home.

Thursday morning our company left and so did Austin.
The high school wrestling team went to Myrtle Beach for a wrestling tournament this weekend.
When we got up on Sat morning to 15* temperatures, he was at the beach wearing short sleeves.
Their hotel had 3 pools, 3 hot tubs and 2 lazy rivers. (Now why did I not go on this trip with them???)
There were 27 teams competing from 6 different states.
Austin placed in the top 6 in his weight class, and Point Pleasant took 1st place overall!!!
It looks like its going to be a great season.

On Sat night we took Leila to see Santa Claus.
She did NOT want anything at all to do with him.
She didn't even want to stand by him.
One thing I thought was really cool though - he knew sign language!
When his 'elf' gave Leila a candy cane, and she signed 'candy' - Santa knew what she was 'saying'.
He asked us if she signed and when we told him, yes, he told us that he had taken 2 courses in sign language.


After church today, we left Leila with a sitter, and David, Darrell and I went with Darrell's youth group to see a Christmas play at the theater in Gallipolis.
They did a fantastic job, and we enjoyed it.
There's going to be a Christmas comedy there next weekend.
I'd like to try to go to that one too, but we'll have to see if we can get another sitter.
That will be Christmas Sunday, so we may have a hard time with that one.

What a busy week coming up we have.
I have something to do and someplace to be every single day this week.

A Late Birthday

David's birthday was Thurs.
My happy birthday wishes (on here anyway) are a few days late, but I wish them nevertheless.

Austin's truck is now in the shop being repaired.
On Thurs however, my car ended up in the shop as well.
I had gone to town, but a pipe coming off the radiator has a hole in it.
That caused the car to overheat, and Leila and I ended up sitting along the road.
It just so happened though that my mom happened to be driving by and saw us.
She stopped, picked us up and brought us home.
I had to call the tow truck to come and get my car.
Now we're short 2 vehicles.
This is proving to be quite inconvenient, and I want all of our vehicles back home where they belong.

We woke up today to the first snow of the season.
Although it snowed for several hours, we only really got a dusting on the ground and none on the roads.
Because of the Christmas season and in honor of the first snow, we took the time tonight to drive through our town's Christmas light display.
Once we started thru the lights, we took Leila out of her carseat.
Being out of her seat must have thrown her for such a loop, she hardly noticed or enjoyed the 1st part of the lights.
Once she realized that it really was okay, she settled down and enjoyed the experience.
Well, she enjoyed it until we put her back in her seat at the end of the display.
Apparently she thought this being out of the seat and on my lap was a pretty good thing and definitely was not ready for it to end.

Christmas Tree

We put our tree up. Leila loves it.
She really doesn't bother it either. But she does want it turned on 1st thing every morning.

I'm getting better. It seems I go thru a depressing funk every Nov.
I start pulling out of it as the Christmas season begins to wind up.
Once again, I'm thinking - I can do this.
I baked the 1st batch of Christmas cookies today.
I need to start cards and wrapping, but that will come.

In the midst of all this hustle and bustle and busy Christmas craziness, I think - okay, at least I'm not on my way to the other side of the world.
We have friends that are leaving tomorrow for China. They're going to pick up not 1, but 2 little boys!
I think - wow, how wonderful, exciting, crazy, amazing, unbelievable......
Am I just a little bit jealous - yes. But am I glad it's them and not us - yes.
And I can't think of better people for such a huge journey.
I wish them safe travels and easy transitions.