Kat's Really, Really, Really Big Day!

The perfect dress at the Goodwill ......................................$1.99
The perfect shoes (also at the Goodwill)..............................$.99
The perfect Yankee Doodle Hat at Michael's.....................$3.99
Little Red Bolivian Sweater................................................$15.00
Mommy acting as the lawyer..............................................FREE
American Citizenship.................................................PRICELESS



The Judge is standing, BTW. No, Really. Kat is not.

Letting success go straight to her head!

We knew our hearing was today, but we weren' t sure that the adoption would be finalized, as we heard from the court last week that we were missing a County background check and our fingerprint letter from Homeland Security. Mostly because I had no idea they were supposed to be submitted. With the help of our social worker, we got the County thing done this week, but our fingerprints had expired back on her first birthday and it would take months to get them again. So I submitted the old letter and the new background check, today, which I think helped, as it didn't get kicked out in the review earlier in the week for being expired. Or she really didn't care about our stupid fingerprints...... Whatever the case. we have a certified adoption decree, which will be followed by a US birth certificate. Which will be followed in short order by a US passport! She's one of us now. A great day for the kid, though she doesn't seem to appreciate it in the slightest.

I had planned to take a bunch pics of her in her chair with all of her patriotic attire on, but we learned a valuable lesson. Never put a kid in for a long overdue nap with just a dress and a diaper on. Turns out, they may unfasten the diaper, and then proceed to soil the bed, themselves, and everything that they roll in while screaming bloody murder. oops. Who knew? Those pics will follow this week, when we're in Calgary (we leave tomorrow AM).

Chasing the Easter Bunny

Well, we went to see the easter bunny and hunted some eggs. Not sure about the bunny dude.


You may assume the little one wandering through a sea of eggs may not quite be getting the big picture......


Making hay angels is clearly WAY more fun than looking for stupid eggs!

You can see that we had a great time, despite the accomplishment of finding one egg unaided.

Long after the place had cleared out, someone tossed a few more eggs in and Kat hunted some down. I think she got 4 eggs at this hunt.


And then she threw it......


The second egg hunt.....this one was at a ummmmm cemetery. Hey, it was different. How often does one go to an egg hunt at a funeral home/cemetery? They had great cookies. And tons of eggs and a scary looking bunny.

Look, she found an egg.....but she doesn't care. And that's the mausoleum behind her.

I meant to get a pic of her and her basket in front of (on?) a grave. Will she get this one? It looks like she might......

Instead, she went for the straw!

Her basket is full because I was picking up the opened/discarded eggs in the straw as she was playing. She is sitting on a really nice granite memorial bench, closest we got to a grave picture.

Rain, rain and more rain...means puddles

Well, it FINALLY stopped raining today.... we all got out to the dogpark (well, not poor Dan). The boys had been going crazy, as they've been out once in 2 weeks (though I tried twice more, but the voices told Boo not to get in the car).

Kat and Mommy self-portrait. You can't see it, but we're pushing the stroller. Camera's in the wrong hand for the button on the camera. Or Kat's in the wrong hand, whatever. She's a terrible driver whatever the case.

She has recently started crossing her arms as best she can, like Daddy.

Could he look more regal? Bob in the background- Ben cleaned Bob out throughly after Kat vacated it for the puddles.

We had such cool lighting, shadows, reflections, etc. I may have overdone it on the pics....

Loved the cloud reflections

Two shadows? A reflection and a shadow? A ghost?

This series is so cute and her reflection is amazing. She had a miserable time at the park, as you can see.

At 2AM, with a 103 temp last week, she was playing her guitar with Daddy. Poor guy, it was the only time he saw her that day.

Ann visit, new helmet

Ann was here from Calgary last night. She brought Kat a great book and became Kat's favorite playtoy for the evening.

We bought Kat a bike helmet and tried it out (upstairs). If the trike looks a little like an antique, it is. Mom bought it when Jerry was little (40+ years ago) and then delivered it to us when they visited this summer. Not quite getting the concept in the pic below.

My camera takes blurry action shots now.....not happy about that, but I got a clear non-moving shot. Maybe the next pics will actually be outdoors.

And this is her new Zoobie- a stuffed animal/pillow/blanket combo that she seems to really like.

Here's the helmet up close.

the Zoo and St Patrick's Day

The komodo dragon was cruising around. I really think it was stalking Kat. And I think she knew it. She seemed creeped out by the giant lizard cruising around sticking its tongue out.

At Kidquest, driving the big rig.

Kat's first St. Patrick's Day was pretty lame, as Dan's been working a lot and we haven't seen too much of him. But Kat insisted on getting dressed in her green finest......

Sticking the dismount, as usual. She LOVES her horse!

Spring in Seattle

Kat and I woke up from our nap this afternoon to huge fluffy snowflakes and a good covering of snow....

I love the little feet prints in the snow.

Kat's first snowball. Apparently in the snow, she's a lefty.

More torture in the sled.

I felt bad for the dandelion. And then we ran it over with the sled.

Here's daddy and Kat and their pretzels.

The poor daffodils almost made it. I'm sure we'll see them sooner or later.

Fuzzy, but we save money on wipes this way. I think this is a symbiotic relationship.

On the slide

She hates the slide too.......

9-1-1 and a car ride

If I'd known what had happened, I would have snapped her photo as soon as I came back. I left Kat alone in the family room for no more than 1.5 minutes (that's one and a half, not 15). I ran downstairs to get the boys their breakfast.

When I got back, she had found my charging phone and picked it up. And opened it. And dialed. When I came in, she had the phone up to her face, was jabbering away and laughing. And the screen said "call ended: 25 seconds". Uh oh. I was wondering who she had called and was getting ready to check. The question was answered moments later when my phone rang. The caller said "This is 9-1-1. We had a call from this number. Was it the little one?" I apologized profusely. And for the record, I don't have 9-1-1 on the speed dial ( I double checked it). So she dialed all 3 numbers in order, and hit send before jabbering at the 9-1-1 operator and then hanging up, but continued jabbering.

Anyway some pics of how to properly use a car and how to dismount.