Happy Birthday Baby Girl.

On Friday June 26th Naomi will be 2 years old. Where does the time go. She was just 8 months old when she came home and now she is a 2 year old. She is definitely not a baby anymore. She is so wanting to be big like her brother. She wants to do everything that he does. In the last few months she has gone from using almost exclusively sign language to talking in full sentences. We can;t always understand her, but we are learning what her words sound like. She is still in speech therapy working on her articulation and sequencing. Other big changes are she decided she doesn't like diapers anymore and pretty much asked to wear big girl panties. She is doing very well with it considering she is just now 2. She is not completely potty trained, but we are so far down that road now there is no turning back.
Greg and I are going to be out of town this weekend so we celebrated her birthday last Saturday. She loved opening her gifts. She enjoys playing with her Mrs Potato Head and she loves her new chair. Her Thumbalina dress up outfit - not so much! We spent the day with family and had great fun swimming and eating. The cake was especially good.

A Must See Video

I stole this video from a friend's blog. Thank you Tera for having it posted. I hope that you watch it and are moved.

Lightning Ahlers - My Adoption Story from The Ahlers Family on Vimeo.

We had a Fun Day.

Greg is out of town this week and I really miss him. He gets up with Naomi in the middle of the night and then gets up and gets her in the morning. He goes downstairs and gets milk for both kids and a banana for Naomi every morning, while I keep my eyes shut and hope nobody really wants to be awake. The last 2 mornings I have missed all he does in the morning. So, that brings us to today. Josiah came into my room at 4:30am, which is not unusual. Instead of taking him back to bed after a short snuggle, I just had him jump into bed with me. BIG MISTAKE! He stayed awake until 6am. Naomi woke up at 6:30am, so my day started very early.
At 9am we met Greg's mom, sister and niece downtown. We transferred all our stuff into their car and went to Huber's. When we got there the children were so excited to ride the wagon out to the strawberry patch. We spent about an hour picking strawberries while the kids ate more than they picked. Naomi kept eating the berries that I picked and then throwing the stems back into the box. I spent a ton of time fishing the stems out of the box and trying to replace all the kids ate. When we got back from picking we had a picnic lunch and looked at the fish for a while. We packed everyone up and came back to Louisville. Naomi slept for an hour in the car and then another 2 1/2 hours when we got home. After naps we had an early dinner and then off to swimming at the Y. We only swam for an hour, but it was so much fun. After swimming we stopped at the pet store to look at the animals. Naomi squealed with delight the whole time we were there. She couldn't decide which animals she wanted to look at so she ran around squealing. It was fun. Josiah is into snakes and spiders right now. He wanted to see the "creepy animals". We then went home for some play time outside and then bed. I am wiped out. It was a really fun day. I hope we can have fun all summer.

What I Found in my Bed

When I went up to bed last night this is what I found.

I could't get this to turn the right way, but it was too cute not to post.

Last Day of Pre-School

Monday was Josiah's last day of pre-school. I can't believe that in the Fall he will be in kindergarten. He went to school early on Monday and Greg, Naomi and I went with him. His class and all the other pre-school classes stood up in the gym and did several very cute songs for us. After the little ceremony we went back to his classroom. each of the children going to kindergarten got a little diploma and a summer workbook. We stayed and had a pizza lunch outside on the playground and Josiah got to go home early. He really was supposed to be finished today, but I figured after all the celebrations on Monday it would be unfair to make him go back for 2 more days. They really weren't doing anything in the class except watching movies and I figured he could do that just as well at home.

It's Been a While

It has been a while since I posted. Life has been a whirlwind since we got back from vacation. We have been busy every weekend with some kind of activity. A few weeks ago we had our combined worship service for our church, Highview Baptist. This is where all 6 of our campuses come together for worship. This quarter we had an adoption emphasis and had many of the children in our church that have been adopted go up on stage. Many, including our 2, were in their traditional dress from their birth countries. We spent all day convincing Josiah that he should where his Hanbok and that it would make him look like a warrior. He thinks it makes him look like a princess. We did convince him and I think the kids looked great.Another weekend we spent the day in the yard adding flower beds and mulching. Greg got a new rose and planted it with some help. Greg is the gardener in our family. If it were left up to me everything would be dead - no green thumb here!Last weekend we went to Danville KY for a picnic on Sunday afternoon. It was organised by our homestudy agency. The kids had so much fun playing on the playground and touching the animals at the little petting zoo. The big hit for the day for Naomi was the pony rides. She sobbed every time she had to get off and give another child a turn. She also fell in love with a little dog that was there. Josiah would not have anything to do with the pony rides. He was scared to even go near them. The last thing we did before we left was convince him to just sit on a pony. He did and he also did the little ride. He was sad that it had taken him so long to try it out. He wanted to ride more, but it was time to go. He said that next time he will have to be more brave sooner so that he can have as much fun as Naomi had.