The many faces of my silly Vally

Vally was particularly cute today. She was in a really good mood. She had a little melt down at 9 when she got tired. She looked so much like AJ when she was doing her poor pitiful me semi fake cry. I gave her a bottle laid her in the crib and she fell asleep right away. She walked about 3 steps on her own. She thinks she can walk up the stairs and gets really mad when I tell her she can't.

Screaming, crying, barfing

Sean had a really great time with Kylie, Brie and Jack. He was so busy he didn't even call us on Sunday. It made me kind of sad, it's the first time since before his adoption that we went 24 hours without talking to him. Sean said "I talked to you." He was just having that much fun. They slept in a a tent for two nights, swam everyday, went to church Sunday and boating on Monday. All was well until we got home. When we were walking into the house I asked, "where's Lovely?" Sean literally started to scream when he realized he'd forgotten his blanket. He started crying. He called Kylie and Brie and was crying so hard he barfed. I'm not talking a little barf. I don't know what he ate for dinner but it filled up the bathroom sink. I arranged with Lanette to have Troy bring Lovely to work in the morning and I would pick him up. Troy works in North Salt Lake. This was not enough to reduce Sean's stress, he was literally beside himself. I asked him what he wanted me to do and he said "go back and pick him up." He was so pitiful that we drove back to South Jordan to pick up his blanket. He hung on to Lovely all night. He actually hangs on to Lovely every night. I never had a toy or blanket that brought out one hundredth of that emotion.

They were surprised

Sean and the girls had been talking memorial day plans for a couple of weeks. The girls were hoping Jack would come. Sean said he would spend the night there one night if Jack wasn't there and then they would all come to our house. Jack came and is spending the weekend so Sean is too. Lanette texted me Friday night and asked if Sean could go to pick up Jack or if she should leave him home. I told her it was up to Sean if he wanted to go or not. I would have liked to see Jennie and Ryan's face when Sean walked in. He hasn't seen them since he was five. When I talked to Sean on the phone he said it was kind of weird and they didn't look like he remembered. Apparently they are living together again which I didn't know. Sean said "they aren't fighting anymore because they were holding hands." They were fighting at that moment wait til they get a couple beers in them. Poor little Jack, he is so cute. He looks just like a mini Sean. I hope they are taking care of him.

They've spent most of their days in the pool. Last night they slept outside in a tent. I know because Sean calls me at night to read them a story over the phone. Last night I was getting ready for bed because I had to be to work early so I put his audio book on his tablet next to my phone. The night before I just read over the phone.

I bought Sean his own phone on Friday. He's been wanting one ever since Kylie and Brie got one for Christmas. Don got a new job (yeah) at Hill Field. Without a cell phone there are going to be times Sean is walking home from school or home alone for an hour so he needs a way to communicate. He also thinks he needs a way to watch YouTube and play games. T-Mobile had a special so I put him on my plan and my bill went down $20 a month.

Friday night after we took Sean to Kylie and Brie's Don and I went out to dinner then we went to a comedy club. It was weird because I don't think there has ever been a time when there were only 2 people sleeping in our house. Well maybe Mom and Teresa when Don and I were out of town. I don't think there's ever been a time it was just me and Don. Milla was sleeping at a friends and Teresa is in a nursing home so it was just us. Milla goes home next Sunday.

I had a tripped to NC planned for all three of us but Don has to work so it will just be me and Sean. Don will be all alone in the house. At least the chickens are outside to keep him company. If he opened the garage door the chickens would come inside and keep him company.

Third Grade

Sean's class worked all year on journals.

Josh Bartholomew, Ethan McBride, Sam and Sean

They were making art out of leaves. Leave it (ha ha) to Sean to make a sheep out of his leaves.

This is my favorite page. Ten things I want people to know about me. Number 8, "I'm adopted and it's not sad!!" I love that he feels that way.

Playing with Vally

AJ has been doing a rotation at McKay Dee so I've had Vally every day. She is about ready to walk. She can take a few steps. She can climb all the way up the stairs and every time she gets a chance she makes a beeline for them. I don't mind if I'm right behind her. She thinks she's bigger than she is. She is getting big fast! She is a funny little

She has been eating like crazy. She had two scrambled eggs for breakfast. She will eat potato chips but she won't eat the stage 2 baby food unless I puree it. I think there is something about the texture that grosses her out. I only bought it once but I bought 8 containers so I've been blending them and she eats them. Mostly she just eats what we eat. She loves the black beans and rice from Costa Vida. So do the chickens. On Thursday I bought her a little dress. She looked so cute in it but it made her mad because it impeded her crawling.

Farm Girl

Who knew chickens were so much fun. Khloe had strep and I was watching her. I had her go gather eggs and she thought it was the coolest thing ever. She always tells me that she has to take eggs to her house.

One day all three laid. The past week Trump has only laid once but the other two have laid every day. Trump is such a loser.
We have 8 chickens and that is too much chicken poop for our yard. I'm going to sell 2 or 3 of the babies. I think 5 or 6 chickens is plenty!

The sand box was running on empty. Don bought some purple and pink sand. Khloe was really digging the pink and Sean the purple.

I can see a future teenager in that face. I don't know when she got so big.

Chickens, chickens, chickens

Who knew chickens were so amusing. We sit outside and watch the chickens, we call it chicken TV. A couple of weeks ago I started putting the babies outside for a couple of hours each day. On afternoon I went outside and there was only one chicken. I found another under the fence and pulled it out. There was a 3rd one in the neighbors yard behind us. I drover over and met a backyard neighbor I didn't know and rescued a chicken. I found two more in a bush. One was permanently lost. Sean was really sad. I told Sean, Ethan and Andrew to go hang up a missing chicken poster at Chick-Fil-A.

We had a coop on order at the Tractor Store. Don went and picked it up in the truck.

We put the warmer light out in the coop and sent the babies outside to live. After one of them flew out of the box onto my dining room table it was time for them to move outside.

We wanted chickens that were laying or about to lay. I found an ad on KSL for a guy in Clinton. He had about 100 chickens in a really hot stinky coop. Imagine 100 chickens in a coop and that's the smell. We bought three chickens. They smelled like their coop so when we got them home I gave them all a bath in a bucket. They were surprisingly calm.

The guy I bought them from said they were "about" to lay. About an hour after we got home Don said "what's that chicken doing over there?" I went and looked and it had laid an egg. We then had to run around the yard chasing the chickens so we could put them in the coop so they would know where to lay eggs.

We named this chicken Trump. Sean named it Henrietta after the Hoboken Chicken. I call it Trump because it was rude to the brown and black chicken and kept sticking it's head under their legs. Don thought it might be a rooster but the next day it laid a really pretty blue/green egg.

The first egg, laid behind the hose box.

We been getting two or three eggs a day. We are going to have to sell a couple of our babies when they get bigger because we don't need 8 eggs a day.