Oh, boy...

We started full-force on the potty training thing yesterday, and this morning Mary Joyce woke up throwing up. She has only thrown up twice and had a low-grade fever, so off to the pediatrician's office we went. The doctor thinks it is probably your standard stomach-bug. Thankfully, no more throw-ups since we got back home, and she ate all of her (bland) lunch and wanted what we were having, too. She has incredible resistance, so maybe we've seen the worst of it already.

On a humorous note, this morning she was standing in the den, and Chet said that she looked like she was about to throw up. I rushed her to the bathroom, where everything actually went into the toilet. At the end of all of this, Mary Joyce clapped for herself, said "Yea!," and then looked up at me and said, "Treat?" I guess at least part of the potty training is taking hold.

(As for why we are working on this (the potty) now, she has been showing some signs of being ready, and we are paying for diapers for two, so if she's ready, we definitely are. :-) )

Edited to Update:
Thankfully, Mary Joyce's amazing resistance level has struck again. She took a long nap after lunch, and after that, you would never have known she had been sick this morning. No more throwing up, no more fever. Hopefully, tomorrow will be a more normal day. :-)

Here we go again...

We're taking another stab at the whole potty training thing, and so far, so good. (As in, we made it through the first day, and I haven't pulled all of my hair out yet. :-) ) I'm not going with any certain method--I think that was part of my problem last time--I was too stressed about following a certain technique to the letter, and combining that with her just not being ready, it just didn't work. This time, I'm taking bits and pieces of things that people have told me worked for them, combining them in a way that works for us, and so far it seems to be going better. I'm certainly a lot less stressed. Let's just hope it takes this time. :-)

Cute as a Bug!

Katherine is a growing girl, and she has started wearing a lot of 12 month sized clothes, in addition to some of her 9 month clothes (which she is beginning to outgrow). She is about 8 1/2 months old now. She is wearing a lot of outfits that Mary Joyce was wearing at this time last year. This outfit is one of my favorites. Jen and I found it on a shopping trip back before Mary Joyce came home from China, and Mary Joyce finally grew into it last spring. This spring, it fits baby sister.

Here is Katherine yesterday (April 25, 2008, 8 1/2 months old):



Here is Mary Joyce last year (March 28, 2007, 15 1/2 months old):

Shopping Trip!

We are within driving distance of a nice outlet mall, but hadn't been there to check it out until Friday. We had a fun day, and got some really good deals. The Carter's store was having a big sale, and I have now discovered Gymboree's outlet store. We don't usually buy much at the regular Gymboree store, except from the clearance racks, but their clothes are good quality. I found 2 dresses for Mary Joyce yesterday in the outlet for $6.99 each. It was a productive trip.



Mary Joyce also got some new Elmo jammies from Wal-Mart (or "Moo-Mot," as she calls it), which she had to wear to bed last night. :-)



I had to include this picture, just because I thought it was funny. :-)

Squeaky Shoe Meltdown

Here is what happens when you leave a pair of squeaky shoes sitting in the back window of your car in Florida for several days and forget that they are there:



This was one of the few pairs of squeaky shoes that survived being worn by Mary Joyce long enough for Katherine to wear them. Katherine is at that stage of pulling her shoes off every time you put them on, so we usually don't even put shoes on her except for church. The other day, I put shoes on her, she pulled them off, and we set them in the back window of the car. Bad idea...

The Things They Say...

Back story...

There is a man in town who has a lawn service who sometimes, as a favor to us, will just stop by and cut our grass if he happens to be in the neighborhood. All-in-all, not a bad deal, but yesterday he showed up right in the middle of naptime for both girls. And woke them BOTH up. Katherine had been asleep longer, so for her, it was no big deal. She also wakes up more easily. Mary Joyce is like her mama. We both value our sleep, and heaven help the person who wakes us up. :-) Mary Joyce in the last few weeks has really started putting words together to form 2 year old sentences. (Nothing to do with sleep, but it figures into the story...)

Anyway, Mary Joyce was almost hysterical at being awakened by this loud noise. (Usually, things like this don't even wake her up, but not this time.) I held her in my lap in the rocker in her room while she was crying, the big sniffling, huffing, and puffing kind of crying. She looked at me and said very emphatically, "Mama! Dat go bye-bye!" In other words, "Make that thing go away!" I felt for her, but at the same time was pretty amused by her way of expressing herself. Too cute!

As an addendum to the story, after she got good and awake, she actually watched the rest of the yard work through the window--not scared at all.

2 Sweet Girls (And Some Kitty Cats...)

A Visit With Cousins (The Post)

Weekend before last, Chet's sister and her family came down for a visit. Mary Joyce had lots of fun playing with Carl and Erica. She loves big kids! We also spent one day playing tourist in St. Augustine while they were here, but we forgot to take our camera. As soon as Lynda sends pictures from their camera, I will add some of those to the blog. For now, there is a photo slideshow in the post below.

A Visit with Cousins

Where have I been?

I'm behind on my blogging because my computer time has been spent lately working on a sample website for our sister site to adoptionvoyages.com, adoptionvoyages.net . We are now giving people the option to have a website that they maintain on their own. Since these look and function differently than our traditional AV sites, we needed a sample, so I put one together using the info from Mary Joyce's original Adoption Voyages site. If you want to take a look, you can see it here. Pass the word along if you know anyone who might be interested!

And, soon, back to our regularly scheduled blogging! :-)