Charlie is Officially a McCarthy

November 2013

The McCarthy family reached another milestone in November.  Six months after Charlie arrived in their home, they legally finalized his adoption at the Courthouse in downtown Fort Worth.  They invited their family and a few friends who were close to the adoption process to share in their special day - and of course we were thrilled get to be there! We were in Connecticut when Lincoln's adoption was finalized, so we were especially glad we could make it this time. The ceremony was short, but filled with emotion.  Brandi, Ryan and Lincoln promised to open their home to Charlie and love him forever. It was a privilege to be there.

Here are all four McCarthy's with the judge after the adoption was finalized:

 And the whole group:

And here's our family with our newest "official" cousin/nephew:

From the courthouse, we all went back to their house to celebrate.  Brandi had a wonderful breakfast set up for us:

Tommy and I had both taken the day off work, so we were able to stay for a couple of hours. As usual, the kids had a great time together:

We are so thankful were had the chance to be there for the McCarthy's special day and to welcome our nephew into the family officially and forever.  We love you, Charlie!

Bounce House Party - Turtle Style!

November 16, 2013

Today, my big boy turned 4!  His actual birthday fell on a Saturday, so we got to do all of the celebrating in one day.  As I mentioned, the cool party if you are a 4-year-old boy seems to be a bounce house party.  We celebrated Jack's birthday at Pump It Up with 15 friends from school and soccer and family.  Pump It Up is my favorite of the bounce house party locations because your party has a room to itself, so there isn't the risk of my four-year-old being trampled by an excited almost pre-teen.

You spend the first 40 minutes in one room, them move on to another room with different bounce houses and slides, and end up in the party room for cake and presents. This is the view of the first room:

Here are Jack and his soccer buddy Carver playing basketball in one of the bounce houses:

Uncle Ryan had fun with the boys, too:

Here's the birthday boy sliding down the big slide: 

We moved to the next room, where the favorite seemed to be this inflatable contraption.  The party host attached flags to velcro squares on this "wall" and the boys ran up the wall and tried to grab a flag and slide back down.

Jack really enjoyed this one!

 

Livi was too little to play on most of the slides and bounce houses, but she found a basketball game that she enjoyed:

This one was also a favorite.  All the kids stand in the glass enclosed area, a button is pressed and it gets really windy inside the area.

 Here is most of the group (the ones we could get to sit still (Jordan, Jayna, Brayden B., Carter, Michael, cousin Lincoln, Jack, Carver, Dylan and Branden D. - not pictured are Tiger, Zachariah, and Truman)

 And the goofy picture:

We moved onto the party room.  Since it was the middle of the afternoon, we elected not to spring for the pizza, but just did cake, drinks and snacks.  Here's the party table - Jack was a very lucky boy!)

 The cake, of course, was Ninja Turtles:

 The birthday boy got to blow out his candles and open presents in the cool inflatable chair:

The whole party crew!

We opened presents at Pump It Up, but that was such a chaotic scene that I don't have any good pictures.  We got them all out when we got home to open them and play.  Almost everything was Ninja Turtles, which was perfect for Jack.  Strangely enough, there were no duplicates and nothing that he already had!

Poppy and Gigi couldn't make it to the party, but they got him a cool big boy training bike with training wheels.  He loved it!

Moving on past his actual birthday, at 4 years old, Jack is a sweet, tenderhearted guy. He is really empathetic towards others, which can be a good thing or a bad thing, as his Mom well knows!  While Ninja Turtles are definitely the preferred playthings and TV show, He also likes Monsters, Inc., Wreck It Ralph, legos, and art projects.  He still gets stories from Mom or Dad every night, followed by songs and cuddles from the other parent.  I will be so sad when the cuddle days are over!

Lots of times, he plays much like his Mommy played.  He lines his cars up in rows and has them follow each other in races.  He also starting to create stories and scenarios as he plays.  The Ninja Turtles battle the bad guys, float in Jake's boat, and sometimes even battle the cars.  Its really fun to see his imagination develop!

He's a smart boy, learning his letters, numbers and basic addition and subtraction.  He can write his own first name.  Each week at school, they have a letter of the week to practice writing.  He can write many of the letters freehand, and can write anything as long as he has a guide to follow.  Every once in a while, I would print out some worksheets for him to practice at home:

Right around his 4th birthday, he also drew the first picture I'd seen him draw that looked like more than just scribbles.  I'm not sure what all was going on, all he would tell me was that it included a lion:

Happy fourth birthday to my sweet, smart, Ninja Turtle loving boy. Mommy loves you more than you will ever know!

Our 18-Month-Old Princess

November 2013

As of November first, our Miss Olivia had officially been a part of our family for 18 months.   Her Diva personality is really starting to develop and I have the feeling that she'll be running this house in a very short time - no doubt giving her Mommy a few gray hairs along the way.  

She's starting to talk a lot - no real sentences at this point, but lots and lots of words.  Her favorites include:

• Bus - she loves school buses, just like her brother did
• Food  - this girl never misses a chance to eat!
• Night-nght - she also loves her beauty sleep and will tell you if she's tired
• Bow and shoes - she's a diva in training, I told you
• Sheeshees - fishies, like on her favorite show, Bubble Guppies, or in the big tank when you walk into daycare
• Book - she loves books - favorites at this point are Moo Ba La La La (or anything by Sandra Boynton), Are You My Mother (she calls it "down, down" because she loves the page where the bird falls out of the tree)
• Hug - strangely enough, this means her favorite 2 pink blankets - I guess because she likes to hug them :)
• Baby - used interchangeably to refer to baby dolls or princesses
• Mama, Dada, Jack - she especially loves her big brother. I'm continually amazed at how patient and loving Jack is with his little sister, sometimes when she doesn't really even deserve it. He loves to hug her and gets upset when she won't hug him back.  He loves to teach her and show her how to do things.  I'm sure they'll have many moments that aren't quite so sweet, but I'm loving it while it lasts!

Since she was enjoying Mommy's shoes and necklaces so much, I bought her very own purse, princess shoes, necklace, bracelet, and crown.  As soon as she put them on, this was the smile we got:

And while she loves the girly stuff, she also loves to get dirty.  Here she is at one of Jack's soccer games:

And chowing down on a bean burrito at dinner (I told you she loved to eat!):

Just like we did for Jack, we've managed to invent many nicknames for Miss Olivia - Livi, Livi Lou, Lou Lou, Boo Bug, Doodle, Missy Moo.  Whatever it is we call her, we love this little lady!

Photo Fun with Allison

November 2013

Photo session #5 with the talented Allison Duckworth.  She first took our pictures for Jack's first birthday. That day, we happened to choose Deep Ellum as our location on "Zombie Day" no less.  We loved those pictures and figured that if she could get great shots in that environment she could pretty much get them anywhere.  That has definitely proven true.

This time, I felt like we were a mess when we arrived.  I didn't like the outfit I thought I wanted Livi to wear, so she ended up in a cream colored shirt with white tights and a white headband (fortunately, they all look the same color in the photos). I had no idea what to do with her hair - it was almost too long for a stretchy headband, but not really long enough to pull back yet.  And Jack still had a faint outline of the giant bruise he got on his forehead when he fell off his bed one night.  Despite all of these things, Allison did it again - I loved so many of her shots.

We started out near a little stream, trying to keep Olivia from falling in and trying to keep my balance on the rocks.  She took my absolute favorite photo here, the one that I chose to use for our Christmas card:

She also got a really good family photo there:

From there, we progressed to a bridge over the little stream.  Allison let the little ones run around while she snapped some candid photos.  I really love this one:

I love how this one turned out, too.  Livi is not too sure about what is going on behind her :)

At last, we moved out into a grassy field behind the stream.  At this point, the kids were going crazy, but it doesn't really show in the pictures.  Jack looks so cute on Tommy's shoulders in this one:

She didn't get any good close up shots of Jack this time.  Probably because he spent most of the time running around like a crazy guy.  He looks like such a big boy in this one:

She got quite a few good close ups of Livi.  I think this one is my favorite.  The crinkled forehead is classic Olivia and you really get a sense of her personality:

This one is pretty cute, too:

These next two look lie they were taken together, even though I'm not sure that they were.  Livi offers a flower to her big brother:

And he accepts!

Of course, we had to have some silly shots, too.  This is Jack's go-to look when someone tells him to make a silly face.  He's done it ever since we first read Mr. Funny and Mr. Funny makes everyone laugh by "pulling funny faces."

And when Jack does it, Livi isn't far behind:

I know I've already said I love a lot of these pictures, but I really do love this one of Daddy carrying his little boy on his shoulders:

...and this one of Mommy and her kiddos: 

Finally, my favorite one of the family together.  I used this one on the back of our Christmas card.  You have to look really hard to see that Jack's underwear are peeking out of the top of his pants, don't you?!? ;)

Adventures at Mainstay Farms

November 2013

The weekend after Halloween, we headed south of Fort Worth to Cleburne, Texas to Mainstay Farms. Some close friends of Brandi and Ryan own Mainstay Farms, and I was feeling a little disappointed that we hadn't made it to a pumpkin patch, so this was perfect!

There were so many fun activities for the kids to do there. We were busy all afternoon doing different things and could have stayed even longer.  When we arrived, we headed straight to the zip line, stopping only long enough to watch a pumpkin get launched off of a ledge and smashed into a wall (this is very cool if you are a 3 or 4-year-old boy)! When I saw the zip-line, I was nervous that Jack would be too small to do it, but he proved me wrong. He looks so tiny here, but he loved it and went back again and again, as long as we would let him:

In a different part of the park, Livi even got to try the zip-swing.   She was not as excited as Jack:

We spent a few minutes in a rope maze and then headed over to the giant bouncing balloon. Everyone except Livi and Charlie had fun bouncing - even Nana took a turn:

Daddy and Jack bounced together (so cute!):

Even though Livi was too little to participate, she found a nice dirt pile nearby and had her own fun!

We all took a hayride:

My sweet boy!

The hayride took us over to the other side of the farm where there was a giant playground and a maze. Even Tommy and Papa found something to play on:

The little boys tried it out, too:

At the end of the day, we stopped for some food and made one last stop so the boys could pose on a giant chair:

The night before this outing, we found out some very exciting news - the McCarthy family will be growing by one - Aunt Brandi is pregnant! It was a surprise for everyone, but a very welcome one. It's so amazing that Brandi and Ryan have gotten to experience the wonders of adoption and now the miracles of pregnancy and birth! I smile just thinking about it. The due date is July 13th (although I'm secretly hoping for the 9th!).  We can't wait to add another little one to our extended family!