It is official!!

As of March 12th I am officially and legally the mother of the most adorable 7 year old in the entire world! Wahoo, I am Justin's mom! While the past 20 months I have been acting the part and loving him like a mom....now the state of Texas recognizes what we already had in our home.
I took my camera and everything and this is the only picture that worked. It is the 3 of us after the adoption was finalized. Justin is holding this little dog that the judge gave him.

The video was taken by one of the attorney's on accident. I had given him my camera to take a picture of us with the judge and forgot to change it from video. So I don't have a picture with the judge. Our attorney took a picture and will hopefully forward it to me. When I get it I will post it....for now you get these.

Siblings Playing

Justin woke up this morning with some pink eye so he is not allowed to really play in close proximity with his sister. So this is the game that they played this morning.

Pics from the Phone

As I was getting the pictures off of my phone I noticed that there were a lot of Sariah and only a few of Justin. I was wondering why this is so. I came to the conclusion that my days are primarily spent with Sariah. I spend about 12 waking hours with her a day. Justin and I get about 6 hours together each day and James and I are lucky to get 4 hours each day when we are both awake. Needless to say I get to see Sariah doing more cute things each day. I am going to try harder this next week to get more photos of Justin and James. For now here are the pics from this week.

Sariah loves being independent in her chair at the table.

I love this one...she is so cute.

Cute Justin

Close up of little Miss eating a Mum-Mum

I didn't notice the alien in the background until way after I took the picture.

Eating some bread

Trying to get away from getting her picture taken.

Mom stop taking pictures of me!

Losing that front tooth.

And again!

Getting sweaty in the car waiting to pick up Justin from school.

Sariah do you see Justin?

Getting personal with the window.

My Sister Gretchen is Amazing!!!!!!!!

I have a new nephew! His name is Hank and he is so adorable! My cute and adorable sister Gretchen was in labor for a very, very long time (something like 38 plus hours) when they had to finally take him out via c-section. Hank was a big boy 9lbs 5oz and he is so cute in his pictures. I just wanted to congratulate my sister Gretchen for the amazingly wonderful job she did getting him here. I am so proud of her. Seriously she rocks and I find myself fighting back the tears as I think of all she did to get not so little Hank here. I wanted to share one picture of the family and let everyone know that I have an amazing sister named Gretchen! Mark is a proud papa and a wonderful brother-in-law. I am so lucky to be a part of my extended family. Seriously there isn't one person in my family that I don't love oh so very much. Anyway, Gretchen you Rock!

Hope

CCNA Certified!

In the month of January James studied a lot for his CCNA....when he finally passed his test we went out to celebrate. We got a gift card for Christmas to the Cheesecake Factory so we decided to use it to celebrate. The celebration was a family affair!

Dad and the kiddos

The whole Family

Mom and the kiddos and the cheesecake...do you think Justin is excited to eat it?

Sitting at the Big Table

So Sariah has moved out of sitting and eating in her bumbo to sitting at the family table. She wouldn't let me sit at the table for dinner without holding her. That of course would turn into a game of who can get the food on mom's plate first. While it was a fun game for a bit she needed to have her own seat. I got her one of those chairs that attaches to the table and she loves it. The following are pictures of her the first night at the dinner table.

She had sweet potatoes for dinner...can you tell?

Always wanting to do what Justin does, she loves her big brother.

We had yummy gumbo for dinner

She can drink from a sippy cup all by herself too.

Happy baby girl becoming so independent already!

She is just too cute for words...seriously!

Look at her go!

When we were at the museum last weekend I captured Sariah crawling.

Lego Flower

My cute little Justin is always trying to find ways to put a smile on my face. He is such an awesome kiddo. I am so lucky to be his mom!
A few weeks ago he made me this flower...actually it's been over a month ago he made me this flower out of legos.

It sat in the kitchen for weeks and now it's on they pantry by the lamp.
I love it! He is so creative.

Justin knows that I love to get flowers and he wanted to make sure that I had one always. I think it has sort of shocked him that I have kept the flower for so long. But every time I look at it I smile because I know that my little man loves me and that I am so blessed to be his Mom.

Dinner at the Park

Last week we had 2 days that were 80+ degrees. It was so beautiful that I had to take the family to have dinner at the park. There is this wooden park that we all love to go to over in Coppell, so I packed dinner and off we went to the park. James met us there after work.

Justin is such a goof. He makes me giggle.
Sariah loved the swings with Dad.

Justin playing with Sariah and Dad

Justin loved the swings too!

Sariah loves her Daddy.

Such a cute face.

I love that it in Texas you can have picnics in February and not worry about the kids getting too cold. It was so nice. I would have to say that Texas has grown on me. The weather is great here and the people are nice.

Museum of Nature and Science right here in Dallas

A few weeks ago we had a family fun activity directed by Justin. We have not had a family fun activity in a long time. Family fun activities require the whole family to participate in whatever activity is chosen by the children. I made a list of fun things to do around the Dallas area in February and Justin got to pick which one he wanted to do. (Being the oldest definitely has it's privileges, since he will most likely be able to keep picking the family fun day activities for about 4 more years. When do you think Sariah will start wanting to pick the activities?) Anyway, Justin picked the Museum of Nature and Science

We spent the most time in the area with bubbles. Justin got really good at making the bubbles.

Learning the technique.

Wow look how big they get!

He thought it was so cool!

Daddy and Sariah tried to make some bubbles too.

Playing music

Sariah kept trying to find Justin

Buiding an Arch

Playing in the infant area with the blocks

She gets around

Rock climbing

There were tons of things to do at the Nature and Science Museum, I just didn't take pictures of all the things we got to explore. Justin seriously could of spent a whole day in each exhibit learning about each given topic. He asked to go back with a notebook so he can take notes on what he learns. My little man loves to learn new things.