Thursday, April 11, 2013

The Girlies



Loving this new pose that she is doing. Kairie is all into dance these days. The highlight of the week is coming home to teach Isla her new dance moves.



Isla's hair is growing out to get to pigtail status once again! She is all about singing lately. She loves her blankie still (I think I'm going to have to start the weaning process) and she loves her friends around the neighborhood "They're my favorite" is what she tells me.


Saturday, February 16, 2013

Valentine's Day 2013

Happy Love Day!! Kairie got to go to preschool and have a Valentine's day party, so Janae and I decided we'd have one.

But first the girls woke up and decided that they needed to express some artistic abilities on themselves and the walls and carpet. I found them in the bathroom trying to hide from me: 


Then Boston and Kennedy joined us and Isla got to snuggle her Boston! Boston wasn't so sure about someone being in his personal space ;)


Isla changes her outfit often. Like 4 times a day. So she came down later the day in this outfit. She's actually really good at walking in high heels and will walk in them for awhile before she realizes that they are a lot of hassle...I tell her that's life in high heels!


Group shots are always interesting with kiddos!


We went outside and ran around in the sun. It's funny how us Utahns (or cold-weathered) people think 40 degrees is warm and we don't need coats!




Jen and Jeremy send the girls cards with $1 in them, they've gathered a nice savings from their "Aunt" and "Uncle"!

The joys of balloons! They love going outside and enjoying this sunny weather!
Yet another outfit change towards the end of the day.


Tuesday, January 15, 2013

I'm Back 2013!


Happy New Year! Some of you may have noticed we've added one to our crew. It's been quite a change in our lives (as you can imagine). I've taken a step back from the blogging and social media for the past 4 months to adjust.

Well yesterday Micah and I made a roadtrip up to Cache Valley and we got an official signature from the judge declaring us legal guardians. It was such a great relief knowing that we had a stamp of approval from the State of Utah. 

The more delicate situation is that of Kairie's mom, my sister. I won't go into all the details but you can imagine the heart break that has gone on in both of our homes over Kairie's situation. The end result was that Kairie was brought down to our home in Salt Lake City and we've had her since mid-September. 

We've had a bumpy road and most of all was the question of "Can I love this little 3 year old and accept her in every way that I do my own daughter?!" I was a bawling wreck for 2 days over this question. I can only say that Micah has been my rock throughout this whole thing. He never once questioned that matter, he could only tell me that he knew the right path and that's the one that our Savior has given us. 

Kairie is adjusting well, she of course knows that I'm not her mommy. She calls Micah "daddy" as she never had a daddy figure around, and it's what Isla calls him. She either calls me Tawni or "Mommy Tawni" at times. Depends on the day. I don't mind either one, and Micah and I both agree that although we are the parent figures in her life we aren't trying to replace anyone. Kairie will always have the opportunity to talk and see Ashley. We of course have our boundary lines and Ashley has respected those boundaries very well. We've been very generous with driving up to Logan so Ashley and Kairie can see one another, but now it's come to the point where it's now Ashley's responsibility to make transportation down here to Salt Lake City to see Kairie because we can't afford to make trips up there regularly. 

Guardianship means that we are in charge of Kairie's personal needs including, shelter, education, and medical care. We also keep track of the child support that is provided for Kairie, the obvious thing is that we spend her child support money on her and her only. Apparently there's a lot of scam going on with guardians - which is just despicable because the money is for the child! It just makes me livid about those people that pocked that money for themselves and not the children...Sorry went off on a tangent there...

One of the biggest concerns was her language and speech. We had her tested at the Early Childhood Intervention Program they have down here and they assessed her at a 2.5 year old level of speech/language. They have a preschool for those that qualify, but Kairie was testing right on the borderline every test. So they made a judgement call and told us to put her in a regular preschool and see if she can improve by Spring. If not then she could go into the preschool that provides speech therapy and special education teachers. 

So we enrolled her at The Winner School and she's loved it. She is also signed up for dance and can't wait to show Isla her new dance moves when she gets homes. Kairie comes home and tells us of her friends: Roman and Lola all the time. Isla is super bummed every time we go to school, only because she can't go yet. 

Kairie has not gotten into a schedule, and she's fully potty-trained now :) That makes me a happy "mommy Tawni" I can only handle one in diapers at a time. Which on a side-note Isla has been doing pretty well with JUST PANTIES for 5 days now!! There's of course an accident every once in a while, but can I just say how great it is to be without a huge bulking diaper bag?! The freedom!!

Isla has adjusted well. Since I was babysitting Boston and Phoenix for awhile, Isla got used to having other kids in her space. So Kairie's appearance into her life was just another playmate. Isla has never shown any jealousy over Micah and I, and her and Kairie get along quite well. There's of course the argument over toys or princess movies, but that's to be expected with children close in age. Micah still can't get over the amount of Barbie's, Princesses, PINK AND PURPLE everywhere he looks. 

Now where do we go from here? We just take one day at a time and we consider Kairie as a part of our family. It's still so new for all involved and we are so grateful for all of our families and friends that are around us that have accepted Kairie as well. I don't think Kairie knows how truly blessed she is to have such an army of love around her. The bottom line is that everyone just wants what is best for Kairie and if her emotional and physical needs are being met then everyone comes out a winner. 


Sunday, August 19, 2012

Jumping for Joy!


Isla's is more of a hop...

We are so glad to have our Boss and Phi back into our lives! It's been a long boring Summer without them running around entertaining Isla. Every morning Isla would come down and ask for "Where's Boston?" checking everywhere! 

We have had a busy week already filled with coloring, bubbles, walks, parks, and hot dogs (they love hot dogs) Boston will start Kindergarten this year so I'm excited to plan some more girlie stuff while he's away at school; tea time, dolls, nail polish...

Wednesday, August 15, 2012

Paris Part I


 We left from Brussels to Paris on August 1. The only problem about the high-speed train is that we went backwards the whole way. So all of us sat back and tried to look at the countryside. 


We pulled into Paris and got on to another mode of transportation, busses (let's just say at this point all of us were tired of sitting from airplanes and trains!) we went through a sketch part of town that kind of worried us all, I'm talking about swarms and swarms of peoples and flies everywhere. But we quickly exited that part of town and got into the center of the city to our hotel "Le Grand Hotel" that sits next to the Opera House.



We got settled in and LOVED the view we had from our hotel room:


Woo-Hoo for the Eiffel Tower :D 


They had a very nice welcome dinner that was in the hotel we were staying at. The food was delish and pretty sure we couldn't get enough of our favorite dessert the chocolate cup pictured below:


They went all out with music, a singer, 4 course meal and the company wasn't bad! We made some really great friends on this trip, and being alone with Micah was amazing - we knew Isla was being spoiled to death back in Utah and we could stay out late, act like we were teenagers, go wherever we pleased, and sit at a dinner table for more than 40 minutes! 

The next 5 days were busy busy busy with tours, food, and walking! That part is still to come...

Thursday, August 9, 2012

Belgium

So if you haven't noticed we've been gone for awhile. Micah had an amazing opportunity to earn a trip to Brussels and Paris, so along with his co-workers and Micah's hard work we were able to head to Europe for 9 days :D

Miss Isla hung out with the fam back in Utah.

Our journey started out to Brussels. What a beautiful city that has some great history. They have a reigning King and they just adore him and his Queen. Everywhere we went on tours they couldn't say enough about their King and Queen. 


We headed to Bruges, Belgium which was 1.5 hour away from Brussels. 

The tour guide said that the city hasn't changed street structures since it was built in the 13th century. 


Bruges is known for it's lace. The cutest elderly ladies would sit out on their doorways making the lace. Such a great trade that takes an amazing amount of time, and patience!


They also have horse carriages that go all around the city. We took a ride and it was so nice to see the quaint old town with cobblestone streets. 


Here is my everyday go-to outfit over in Europe:


The temperatures were perfect at 70-80 degrees. The tour guides usually talked through a microphone so that's what that black box is hanging from my neck. Then the perfect accessory: the orange wristband. This was all all-access pass to cutting in front of LONG lines, food, discounts. I loved this accessory.


Our last day in Belgium I was sad because it looked like I wasn't going to see a very good friend I had made when I was an exchange student to France back in 2003. Micah came to the rescue and suggested that we just rent a car and drive to her.

So at 7:00 pm that night we rented a car and headed to Lille, France which is just on the border of Belgium and France 1.5 hours away. 

Let's just say that I got a little taste of "The Amazing Race" and I am a horrible navigator with a map. Since we didn't have our phones, we had no GPS, and we just printed out a paper with some simple directions. Navigating through European streets is quite interesting...

But we finally made it!


Meet Juliette Berthier. She is one of the sweetest girls I met on my studies in France all those years ago. We have always kept in touch and I am so grateful for her friendship. She cooked us an amazing meal, we chatted the night away, Micah and Jeremy (Juliette's boyfriend)got along great, and we got a great insight to a normal French family's life. 

They teased us saying we were "So American" for out split-decision in renting a car and driving to them that night. Ha ha.


We pulled into our hotel at 3:00 am and packed for our departing trip to Paris at 7:00 that morning. We felt so young and single staying out that late!


We couldn't leave Belgium without having belgium waffles. Delish!

Wednesday, July 25, 2012

Our Family Pictures

We just got our family pictures done by Sweet Moments by Candi who was so amazing with Isla :)