For all those that are wondering, the wedding(s) planning is going well. Our social worker's youngest daughter is getting married this Saturday at the local Country Club. Would you believe one bottle of wine for the reception is $32? Aside from them forgetting to print Grandma's name in the program for the church, everything seems to be coming along. Oh goody ;)
We have one more visit with her in September. After that report is received by our Thailand Adoption Agency, they will send us Maya's original (Thai) birth certificate. As of now, all we have are copies. Our agency is actually the official "guardian" of Maya until we finalize. Once we receive the original birth certificate, we can start legal proceedings in our state. We are really hoping there isn't too much of a delay within our state's court systems and we can finalize the adoption this year. We are so looking forward to having Maya be legally ours and not to mention the nice tax credit on 2008's taxes.
What else is going on...
Ah yes, Dave turned 40! We celebrated with a party at our house. Friends and neighbors helped us ring is Dave's
On Sunday, Dave adorned himself with proper over 40 attire (Thanks to the Gradys for the socks & slippers, HA!):
We celebrated the 4th of July by attending the local parade. It was cute. I didn't get any pictures of the parade but here are the girls:
The funny thing is Maya was dressed the most festive out of us all and she's not even a US citizen! Later that afternoon, we went to the town park to check out the pony rides. We weren't sure if Maya would actually get on a pony but we thought she'd at least get a kick out of seeing one up close. Sadly, when we got to the park, there were no ponies. Some kid, who seemed to be running the show, told us that the pony canceled and they were trying to find a sub. The ponies were a no-show. Got to love small towns.
We ended up just letting Maya play at the playground and then headed home.
I ended up taking the girls to this same park the other day. Maya is getting so brave. There's a slide that's got to be at least 15 feet high. She climbed up the stairs and went down the slide alone! This is so huge for her as she freaked out the first time she went on a baby swing. She must have gone down this slide half a dozen times. She loved it!! She loved it so much she didn't want to leave. Literally, did not want to leave. Can I just say HUGE tantrum?!!? The biggest one I have ever seen. She dropped to the ground and would not move. Crying. Lovely. It was a battle but after about 5 minutes, we finally got into the car (where she proceeded to cry the entire way home). Fun times, fun times.
Maya has actually been doing really well these days. She's become much friendlier. I remember the first couple of months she would really panic when strangers spoke to her. Now, I often see her smiling at strangers and she is the one initiating it. Very cool. The tantrums have also come down to a minimum (sometimes). I probably should clarify. The numbers of tantrums have decreased but the intensity has increased.
Maya's eating habits have gone down hill. She's not the ravenous little critter we first brought home from Thailand. She's becoming much pickier these days. She loves fruits and vegetables but the meats not so much. I find myself trying to pack in her protein with peanut butter, beans and eggs. Sometimes she will eat meat but it's got to have sauce of some sort on it or be really tender.
Overall, I think she's doing okay. She's almost completely out of 12-18 clothes except for a few outfits that ran big. I can definitely tell that she's gotten taller. Weight wise, I don't think she's gained much maybe a pound or two? I weighed both girls yesterday and would you believe that there's only a pound and a half difference between them? Maya still weighs more but it won't be for much longer. Chunky Monkey Julia is gaining on her!
Speaking of Julia:
We have crawling. It's army crawling but it's motion! She does try to get on her hands and knees and rock but that's as far as that goes. She has also learned to clap, wave and here recently, pointing. Within the past week, Julia has finally been able to get to a sitting position from her belly. She definitely won't be walking by her 1st birthday as she is still not able to pull herself up or cruise furniture. Can you believe our little baby is going to be 1 next month? I still can't believe it.
Feeding time has been more interesting. Julia has begun boycotting all baby food. It's a battle to feed her from a spoon these days. She much rather prefers picking up the food herself and piling it in. Sometimes she actually gets the food in her mouth.
(the apple was purely for entertainment purposes- she didn't eat it- she tried though)
