Jumping for joy

Guess who has learned that jumping on the couch is fun? Two seconds after I took this picture, she fell off, but hey, I got my picture, right? Please email me for my address to send my Mother of the Year awards.
Elizabeth got something very cool in the mail yesterday. No, not a court date (no word on that yet)...It was a new medical insurance card, with the name "Elizabeth" on it! I love seeing her "new" name officially being used! I was excited and surprised to receive that before finalization. I had envisioned that getting her a new card was going to be an ordeal, and voi la (sp?) it just appeared in the mail. The county works in mysterious ways...

Chilly morning!

My little pumpkin, all ready for Day Care this morning. I won't tell you how many degrees it was here when we got up. You readers in the Midwest and Northeast probably would just laugh at me...:)

It's not too late to wear a Christmas dress is it?

Yesterday, Elizabeth visited her previous Day Care provider, Miss G, who bought her this adorable dress for Christmas. Unfortunately, we haven't had a chance to get together before yesterday, so Elizabeth didn't have this dress over the holidays. I decided to put it on her today. It's still January, after all!

Greetings from Starbx!

Aaah...I'm sitting in Starbx, sans child, drinking a Cafe Latte. Good times, people! It would be even better if there wasn't a super annoying woman (how many times can you use "like" in one sentence? I love So. California...) talking nonstop at the next table. But I digress...Elizabeth is with a sitter (her previous regular Day Care Provider, actually) for a few hours so I can study. I have the Marriage and Family Therapist exam looming, and it's the only thing left that stands between me a CA MFT license. I know, I know. I'm supposed to be studying, so why am I blogging? In my defense, I have been studying, and I need a break from it... :) I realize I haven't blogged in several days. To be honest, there hasn't been too much new and exciting to write about. Plus, Elizabeth gave me her cold, so I've been going to be bed early most of the week. Miss E is doing great. Sorry no new pics today. I hope to getting some good ones of her soon, but it's hard to shoot a moving target!
Still no word about a court date for finalization. Not that I'm anxious or anything...

Happy MLK Jr. Day!

Still waiting...

Nothing much new here. I spoke with Elizabeth's Social Worker yesterday. She said all the paperwork is in now that is required for the finalization (!!!), and I should be getting a letter from the court clerk with a court date within another week or so. Yippee, I can't wait! This is almost over!
Elizabeth had a great night, no coughing (until she woke up this morning). I ran the humidifier in her room last night for a while, which seems to help. Elizabeth's favorite new expression is "Idon'tknow!" with her hands thrown up (so funny!) Also, when she is looking for something, she will say, "whereareyou?" This morning, she was looking for her blankey, and was walking around saying, "Blankey, whereareyou?" Funny girl!

Sick days

Elizabeth has had a cold, lots of coughing, to the point of vomiting a couple of times, so I kept her home Monday and Tuesday. Never had a fever over 99.4, though. She is back at Day Care today, still coughing a little, but much better. Monday, I stayed home with her, and she was so cuddly. As much as I hate her being sick, it's sure nice to have her slow down enough to give Mommy some cuddle time :) Tuesday, Auntie Julie stayed with her in the morning, so I could work half a day, then I was home all afternoon. Thank you Julie! Elizabeth has decided her absolute favorite word is "no." Of course! I'm really amazed at how her vocabulary is exploding. This is such a fun age, I can see changes in her almost every day!

18 months old!

Wow, I can't believe my baby girl is 18 months old already! Here is a little run down on what she is up to these days:

* her favorite things to do on the weekends are go on the swing at the playground, and the "choo choo" at Balboa Park

* her favorite foods these days are grapes, scambled eggs with cheese, and Lentil soup

* she loves going shopping at Target (I have NO idea where she gets that from...)

* her favorite DVD is Baby Einsteins "Favorite Animals", and she loves to dance during the part where they sing "Old McDonald"

* whenever we're in the car and I drive over a pothole, she always says "whoa!"

* she is in love with Goldie, the dog who lives in the apartment below us.

*she hates when I get on the computer, talk on the phone, or wash dishes

* she has recently started telling me, all on her own, when she needs her diaper changed

* she doesn't like when I run the vacuum cleaner or the garbage disposal

*she thinks when I say "no" to her, that means for her to smirk at me, look extremely cute, and continue doing what she was doing anyway...Sigh...

I'm sure there is a lot more, but those are the biggies that I can think of right now.

Happy 18 month birthday, Miss E! I love you :)

Finally!

Well, today, after bugging Elizabeth's Dr's office, the Dr. finally completed the medical form E's social worker gave me. I gave it to the Dr. almost a month ago! No pressure, guys, I only need this to, you know, complete the adoption. No biggie...Eeesh! Anyway as soon as they told me the form was ready I snuck out of work went on my approved lunch break to pick up the form from the Dr.'s office and mailed it off to the social worker. Hopefully she will get it tomorrow or Thu. and can start working on scheduling our court date! But whatever, I'm ridiculously anxious patiently waiting for this whole process to be over!

By the way, did you notice my new bloggy trick? Thanks to Kelley I now know how to cross out words on my blog. I've seen other people do it on their blogs and thought it was cool. So thank you Kelley! It only took me half the night a few short minutes to get the hang of it!

Why I love 2009!

I love 2009 because this is the year that Elizabeth's adoption will become FINAL! No more social workers (although all the ones I've dealt with have been very nice), and best of all, no more insecurity that Elizabeth won't really be with me forever. For those of you who don't know, about a year before Elizabeth, I was a foster mom to a little girl Molly, from the time she was 2 days old to 6 months. I think I've mentioned it before on this blog. It was a really, really wonderful, intense experience, but pretty devastating when she left, even though I knew the whole time it would only be temporary. I decided after that that I couldn't go through that again, so I applied to the adoption program. I know that Elizabeth is not going anywhere, but I still have this little irrational fear that something will go wrong and she'll be taken from me. Even though I signed those adoption placement papers a couple of weeks ago, until our court date (hopefully in March) she is still legally a dependent of the court. I just want the county out of our lives! Nothing personal against anyone who has worked with us, but I just want us to be just us, with no strings attached, if that makes any sense. Once the adoption is final, her legal name will actually be Elizabeth! Until then, legally, her name is still the name her birth mom gave her when she was born. I have made that her middle name. I can't wait until this is all over, so welcome 2009- and hurry up, March!

Sorry, another meme...

I saw this on Karen's blog and, being the booklover that I am, I couldn't resist...
Here is how it works:

Look at the list of books below and bold those you have read. Feel free to add comments!

1 Pride and Prejudice-Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series- JK Rowling- love these!!!!
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible- I've read only bits and pieces of it
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens-
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott- yes, yes, yes!
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare- I've read several, but definitely not all of them
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger- I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE this book!!!!!!!
19 The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell Loved this book, and have never seen the movie. I know!
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy- I tried, I really tried...
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34 Emma - Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis- Love these, but can't bear it when Aslan is humiliated...
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown no, but I read the one after this, Angels and Demons
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez I tried, I really tried...
44 A Prayer for Owen Meany - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery Love these books, and have visited the house on PEI
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan no, saw the movie though
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
6 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon- great book!
60 Love in The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez no, saw the movie though
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding funny, funny, funny
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray no, but I like the magazine :)
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White loved all his books
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom sappy, yes, but I still liked it
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo read the book, saw the musical- love it!!

Happy New year!

Just a little playground cuteness from this morning...

We had a nice, quiet New Year's Eve. My friend Julie came over to celebrate her birthday and New Year's eve. We just ate, and watched a movie after Elizabeth went to bed. Then, after Julie left, I picked up a little and was asleep in my bed by 11! What can I say, I truly live la vida loca:)

Happy New Year to all my bloggy peeps!