My Baby Turns Four

Last night was Libby and Nathan's birthday party, or rather, it was Libby's birthday party and Nathan attended it. The cake was a Barbie ballerina chocolate cake that Libby picked out. She was the star of the show. I think poor Nathan ended up taking most of the pictures, too, so he's not even in any of the photos. Libby thoroughly enjoyed her party and all of her gifts. She had a princess, ballerina, bride theme for the whole party and loved every minute of it. She could hardly wait to open her presents. We made her eat some dinner and have her cake first. She had a hard time blowing out her candles, but she got them all eventually. Then she could only eat half of her cake before declaring that she was done with cake and was ready for presents. She got a Disney princess movie from Aunt Joy and Uncle Dan, a Belle costume from Uncle Zack and Uncle Josh, a Barbie wedding dress, Cinderella light-up slippers, tiny mermaid doll, and The Little Mermaid movie from Grandma and Grandpa, and a Barbie bride doll and Barbie floor activity book from Mommy and Daddy. She also got a princess dress-up gown complete with matching Barbie gown made by Nana when they were visiting a few weeks ago (still waiting to get the pictures from Nana's camera). She was ecstatic about each gift as she opened them. The rest of the pictures can be seen on my Picasa page.

And here's a picture of our gorgeous Yaguar resting on the back of the couch after the party last night. He was so cute while he was asleep that I had to take his picture.

In foster parent news, Nathan and I have completed all of our foster parent classes, CPR classes, FBI fingerprinting and background checks, and have passed our home fire inspection! Hooray. We have all had our physicals (both kids are way off the chart for height, FYI) and have filled out reams of paperwork. It's amazing what they make you go through before you can be foster parents! Honestly, I think ALL parents should have to go through this process before having kids - maybe there would be a lot fewer kids in the foster care system! Anyway, we will be starting our home study soon. After another several months of working with our social worker, we should be finished with our home study and will be applying for our license from the state. Once that goes through - we are hoping in the early spring - we will be ready for our first placement at any time! We are really excited to see what happens!

The many sayings of Libby (and grunts of Caleb)

Libby has been giving us a run for our money lately with some pretty amusing comments and questions beyond her years. I guess that's what happens when you are not quite four. Caleb isn't yet to the questioning stage (thank goodness!!!) but he also has his little funny Calebisms as he's learning to communicate in other ways than caveman grunting.

Here's a sampling of some of the funny things they have said over the past several weeks - yes, I have been keeping a list :)

"Mommy, how do the baby kittens get inside the mommy kitty's tummy when she's peggent(pregnant)?" yikes! Um, God puts them there. "But how does he put them there?" He just does. "Oh."

"Where was I before I was born?" I guess you were in heaven, Libby. "Oh. Was KK (Caleb) in heaven before he was born?"

"When is Aunty Libby going to have my little sister?" This brings up the whole cousins vs. siblings discussion, not to mention the fact that Aunty Libby might actually have a BOY. Oh my!

On a rare Sunday when I actually got to stay in bed a little later than normal. "Mommy, when are you going to get up today?" Never. "But, Mommy, you HAS to get up and eat some beckist (breakfast). If you don't eat some food, you will not grow and you will be too small for Daddy!"

While planting flowers outside: "Mommy, I saw a bee!" Bees live here outside, Libby. "Mommy, did you know that bees make honey for McDonald's?"

"How you doin', Boys?" said to Nathan, Zack, Josh and Papa while they were moving Zack's furniture.

"You and me can go hiking with shahks (sharks)!"

"Can we buy that?" Yes, we need to buy that today. Go ahead and put it in the cart, please. "Well, is it on sale?"

"Mommy, I'm full of bologna, you are full of cheese, and Caleb is full of mustard." Whenever she says something ridiculous, I tell her she is full of bologna.

While folding laundry on the living room floor: "If you don't get this laundry all folded, you know what's gonna happen?" leans forward and whispers, "I'm gonna vacuum it all up!" laughs and says, "Was that a good joke?"

"I almost fell in the potty! I almost fell to my death!"

"Yes, but. . . . " said after any directions or instructions or corrections given in the past two weeks. Ahhhh!!!!

"That makes my legs all nervous and tickle-y!" after being startled by a speeding motorcycle zooming by our car on the highway.

"Someday, I'm going to grow up to a mommy and make YOU go to bed!"


And here's Caleb's version of speaking lately.

"Mammie" Mandie
"Meap" Meat
"Pooooooooop!!!" Poop
"Ewwww!" yuck - usually said in the context of the above topic
"Pea" Please
"Ah-bee" Obey
"Dae-eee" Daddy
"Mama" or Mum" Mommy
"Ah-Pee" our neighbor Mr. Pete
"Ah-PEE!" motorcycle (Pete has a motorcycle and Caleb is infatuated)
"Me-ah" Come here
"Teeeeee" I would like to brush my teeth
"Dih-doo" Thank you
"Key-key" kitty
"Lellow" Love you
"Ni-Ni" Good night
"Tah-Tay" Caleb (KK)
"Meeeee" "My" That is private property!
"Go, cah" Let's go for a drive.
"Biiiiii" Bike
"Nannie" Nana
"Ah-tah! Ah-tah!" anything else that Caleb would like to say and doesn't know or can't pronounce.

Running Behind as Usual

Now that September is officially over, here's the update for the month :)

This month our baby turned 2! Caleb had a really cute Thomas the Tank cake that Grandma picked out for him. He started the terrible two's immediately before he blew out the candles on his cake and has been exceptionally rotten ever since :) It's a really good thing that he's cute.

Nathan and I took over 36 hours of foster and adoptive parent training while our Mom and Dad Rohrer, Uncle Zack, and Karrie and Clay babysat Caleb and Libby for several late nights and long weekends. Nathan and I still have some final classes in CPR and First aid and a few more reams of paperwork to fill out before we start the home study process.

We nursed two orphaned and malnourished kittens back to health and enjoyed playing with them, but are happy to have our living room back to being "kitten-free".

We had a lot of fun with the kids and endured further naughtiness from Caleb.

And we finished off the month by driving to the Detroit airport to pick up our newest Siberian boy kitty Yaguar straight from Moscow.

We are all looking forward to Mom and Dad's visit in a few days as well! I'm afraid we won't have all of the projects done that we had planned to do before they arrived, but we'll put them to work when they come.

Also, if you haven't read your facebook lately, Matt and Libby are expecting their first baby next spring! I've been having a hard time being quiet about it. In addition to all the regular craziness, Mom and I are working on the nursery decor for the new baby. I have been very busy and have cooked up all kinds of surprises for the new room. I can't wait until the baby shower to show Libby officially. And speaking of Libby, Libby Jr. that is, she kept asking us when Aunty Libby is going to have her sister. We had a hard time convincing her that Aunty Libby's baby is her cousin not her sister, and, horrors, it might even be a boy! She's finally caught on and now every few days, she says, "I wonder when Aunty Libby is going to have my cousin? I think it's a girl cousin." This is usually followed by, "When are you going to have a sister for me, Mommy?" Grrrrrrr. If only it was that easy :)

Click here for the rest of the photos from September.