Flutter away beautiful butterfly

Picture by the terribly famous and fabulous

Miss Yony

Yesterday we spent a little time at the most amazing and fairy-like park in the beautiful spring weather having some darling pictures taken that will benefit a charity that we love to support

The Princess Alexa Foundation

Our dear friend Miss Yony donated all of her services and fees for the weekend of fairy-tale mini's and we have been on her list since she announced them last year. 

I can only say after our VERY sick week in bed, it is hard to look and this picture and remember just days before our beauty was so sick and throwing up.....but it also reminds me how blessed and fortunate we are that our beauty was just temporarily sick and days later was running around this park with her lovely wings stopping people in their tracks and enjoying all that a 2 year old should enjoy about a day at the park.

Love the picture and LOVE that we were able to help out an organization that does so much for children who don't always get better, but certainly does what they can to be able to play dress up and have fun while they are sick. 

City of Brotherly Love.....Philly

Shiyu's mama, Shiyu, Hayden, Auntie

Mama and Hayden in Philly for St. Patty's day

Liberty Bell

Much smaller than I was expecting

Pat's Famous Cheese steaks.....I think our Chinese visitors were pretty grossed out....but they were good sports about it and ate lunch anyway.

View from our room.....who would guess this was Philly??

Waiting for Miss Heather and Hsin to pick us up.  Hayden loves her sit and stroll:)

Philadelphia has the best children's museum.  It is the Touch This Museum.

Hayden, Hsin-Hua and Ruby had a blast:)

Look at how full Hayden's cart is....she picked up one of everything.

Hmmm?? wonder where she gets these shopping tendencies:)

Hsin and Hayden picking up some produce.

Ruby and Hsin ringing up all of Hayden's groceries

Dr. Hayden checking the baby's ears.

Ruby and Dr. Hayden weighing the baby

Planting some carrots and Hsin watering

They make a great team!

Oh the beloved harp.....H was thrilled to find a harp, but she kept telling me it didn't have any strings:(

A vespa ride thru the city(I love this pic Jen took)

Hayden and Ruby K, riding the carasaol

Look at these girls!!!  Heather claims that most of that "bank" in that pond is from their house....They eat here every Friday and Hsin throws $$$$.  Look hard and you will see that is a lot of "bank" in that pond:)

Is this not the cutest picture EVER???  We went out for sushi and after we  finished Miss Heather had brought "bank" for the girls to throw in the pond.  Look at how much fun they are having.

3 best friends having a blast!!

Hsin and Hayden discussing their money situation

I wish this was just a tuckered out girl on her way home to her daddy.....but instead it was a REALLY sick girl who threw up just before we got on our train to head to the airport.  She continued to throw up thru the train ride, thru the airport, 2 flights, a mechanical delay and a creepy guy who had a ridiculous list of things to say one of which was "WOW she is a really calm baby for an adopted child" WTH???  I was secretly hoping H would throw up on him, but my little rock star became a professional puker and made it in the bag EVERY single time!!!  It was great to get home. 

We are on the upswing of feeling better, but let's just say that the last 3 days and nights have been long.

We went to meet Shiyu and her mom and auntie in Philly during springbreak.  The weather was amazing and it was so good to see our China family.  Auntie and Mama had not met Hayden yet, and let's just say it was a total love fest!!!  They taught her so many Mandarin words and just played and loved on her!!  We can't wait to go spend an extended trip with them in Chongqing next summer. 

We saw all the sights and enjoyed a wonderful St. Patricks day. 

Shiyu and her family left for DC and H and I stayed on Friday to see our friends.  Heather, Paul and Hsin.  They were the most gracious hosts(as always) and we spent the day at Philly's children's museum.  It is an amazing place and we had so  much fun.  Hsin-Hua is also from Taiwan and her mommy and I became fast friends while we were waiting and then during our court process'.  We met up shortly after they returned home with Hsin and well the rest is history.  They are a very special family to us and we hope to have many memories with them.  I think Hsin and Hayden will always be friends.

We also met up with our friends Jen and Ruby.  Ruby is from Thailand and is just as lovely as can be....she has an amazingly sweet mama too.  Jen and I have been on-line friends for what seems like forever.  I knew instantly that we would be such good friends....especially if we met in person.  I am thrilled that they were able to join us and they even came home and went to sushi with us.  The girls had a blast together and I think the 3 mommies had a pretty good time too. 

Hayden and I are so lucky to have the opportunity to go visit our friends all over the country.  I hope as Hayden gets older she will appreciate all the ties we have made thru adoption.  Our friendships are incredibly special to me, and I hope that Hayden will feel the same way. 

Thanks to our friends in the city of brotherly love....we came, we saw, we ate and we enjoyed. 

We will be BACK!!!

Spring has sprung

I don't have much for you in the way of anything new.  It has been pretty boring around our house. 

March was my first month with a schedule from said big airline, but the 3 trips that I had.....I dropped to other flight attendants that were far more motivated than myself to work.  I am hopeful that April will bring more motivation to head out to the friendly skies at least once:) I am a bit slow to adjust to change and so I feel like I should be doing this return to work thing in baby steps.  LOL

Hayden and I are both adjusting to her going to school really well.  She really likes it a lot and LOVES her teachers more and more!!  That might make for a difficult adjustment when we go back in the fall and she has new teachers(for me too, we are blessed with 2 GREAT teachers and neither Hayden or I do well with change)  I guess we will worry about that when the time comes.  I am just shocked each week with how much I can accomplish in a mere 10 hours of school time.  I had 2 years worth of stuff to catch up on and I am slowly making my way through it as well as finally making up all the dr's appts, dentist, mammogram, getting to the eye dr.  Things that just never made it to the top of the list of things to do with a small child and you hate to hire a sitter for such events(save those for a date perhaps)  So it has been a GREAT change for all of us!! 

We are headed to a big city in the east to meet up with Shiyu and her mom and aunt.  This is her mom's first visit to the US and so we are meeting them and touring around for a few days with them(so excited) and we also get to meet up with some of our adoption friends(YAY) so we are excited about our few days away seeing friends and our extended Chinese family.  So I will finally have some good pics(I hope) and some fun stories to share.

Otherwise nothing exciting on our side of the woods.  The weather is beautiful and all the trees are blooming(sneeze) and we are happy to be able to be outside more and more!!! We are getting ready to participate in raising money for https://princessalexafoundation.org/Home_Page.html this is an amazing organization, and Krys is an amazing mommy who has done so much to preserve and honor her daughter's life.  Our beloved family photographer Miss Yony is doing a "fairy princess" photoshoot in this amazing park that makes me think of  "Alice in Wonderland" all of her fees will go towards the princess alexa foundation and helping make their park a dream come true.  So when I heard about this....of course we had to say yes, an opportunity to help out a charity we love to support and get great pictures of Hayden....it was a win win for all:)  So that is in a few weeks and we can't wait!

Silly, silly girl!!!  Mommy taking pictures is never a success

Someone did get a new hair do this past week.  It is hard to see that it is stacked in the back and cut at an angle.  It is so cute in person I can't even tell you.  The girl who cuts H's hair was so excited that we finally had enough length and volume to do something more than just trim.  It really looks adorable on her. 

Birthday Party fun

Miss Priss in her You Rock leo saying she is 4!!

Hayden and her friend Sophia(in the brown and pink)who was celebrating her 4th birthday with her twin sister Adalyne(not pictured_

Waiting for cake!!

Pinkalicious pink cupcakes:)

Hayden had a blast at her friend Sophia's birthday party.  She and her twin sister Adalyne turned 4 and had a really fun Lily inspired gymnastic party complete with 2 bounce houses!!  Hayden enjoyed herself, and ran around like a crazy woman.  She was the smallest one there, but pretty sure she was moving the fastest:)

School update: I barely got a glance or a goodbye today when I dropped her. There were some children starting to paint and work on these stacking things, and she could not be bothered with such things like goodbye!!  I LOVE that she loves going, and I really LOVE that she loves her teachers.  I want school to be such a positive experience and it seems thus far(6 days of school so far) that she is a school rock star!! 

We also started potty training over the weekend.  She has been ready....mama not so much!  But I thought we would give it a whirl and see what happened.  Well we only had one wet pair of fancy Nancy panties and 7 successful trips to the potty!!  Yes I should have known that Hershey's kisses would encourage my child to do just about anything I wanted.  I am pretty sure she ate 5 of those kisses in a 2 hour span of time.  Can you eat too much chocolate??  Hayden would say ABSOLUTELY NOT!!!  So I bought some pull ups for school and home and bought a few more pairs of panties.  Still not really ready to stop with diapers, but hey I can find something better to buy with diaper money every month!!!