Saturday Night

Mark and I went on a date tonight! We went out to dinner with our friends Jana and Dan and had adult conversation and everything! No one spilled anything or wiped their hands on my shirt. I didn't have to jump up to grab a papertowel and I didn't have to wipe up the floor when we were done. And it was FUN! This is what a Saturday night usually looks like at our house:

Please understand ... I love these kind of Saturday nights too but it was good to take a break and for me and Mark to have some time together. And yes, we spent most of the evening talking about our kids. : ) Good friends, good food, good babysitter ... life is good!

Sledding

We finally had an opportunity to take Simon sledding last week. We tried to be good parents and think about how best to keep him warm and dry. Mark had the idea to scotch tape Simon's mittens around his wrist.

Go ahead -- I know what you're thinking. Say it: "I can't put my arms down!" Simon did fall over a few times and it truly made me think of Randy from A Christmas Story.

The snow was a few days old so it was slow going at first ...

When the first hill didn't work very well, we went back across the street to our backyard. Simon rode in style.

"Please, stop. No more photos, Mommy."

"Really? People think this is fun?"

"Ok, this is kinda cool!"

But after about three trips down our little hill, Simon was ready to look for something with a little more excitement ... like mowing the snowy driveway, for example.

"Hey look! I can reach the peddles now!"

When Simon had enough of the cold, we took him inside and introduced him to the joys of hot chocolate. (or "chawcalet" as he calls it!)

And it turns out, Simon shares my love of chocolate. : )

About putting stickers on your forehead ...

If you know Simon, are a cashier at Target, or a regular reader of this blog, then you know how much Simon loves stickers. Especially putting stickers on this forehead.

On Saturday morning, I was in the bathroom getting ready for the day. Mark was enjoying a few more minutes in bed and Simon was in our guest bedroom/office. Simon was standing by the computer and whining/begging to watch 'videos' -- video clips of himself that we have taken since he came home. He LOVES to watch himself and re-visit his trips to Monkey Joe's, the time we tried to make him eat ice cream, and learning to slurp spaghetti.

A few minutes went by and I thought, gee, it's gotten kind of quiet ... what could Simon be doing?

I wish I had the camera upstairs with me because we found Simon sitting on our desk, happily peeling our return address labels from the roll and sticking them to his forehead. There were probably 8-10 labels stuck there. This was one of those times we knew we needed to correct him but were trying not to laugh! Here is the evidence:


And if you look closely at his forehead, you can see the red marks that the sticky labels left behind! Poor guy! He would periodically stop yesterday to rub his forehead and say "ouch."

We think he might have actually listened to us and remembered because when we went to Target later in the day, he kept the sticker wrapped around his finger like a bandaid. : )

Adoption Update

We finally have some news about Lil Ailor #2!! We received our homestudy on Friday, meaning that we can take the next step and apply to US Immigration for pre-approval. Things are constantly changing in intercountry adoption so it took a little longer than normal to get our homestudy so that they could make sure the most up-to-date information requests could be included. We appreciate the attention to detail taken by our caseworker and our agency so we were ok with the extra wait. We didn't waste any time getting it back in the mail to USCIS! So now we wait for our fingerprinting appointment in Indianapolis and keep working on our dossier.

We don't feel as anxious this time around ... probably because Simon is keeping us busy! If you ask him if he'd like a little brother or sister, the answer is usually "nope." Oh well! It's going to be awhile anyway. Our hope is that we'll have Lil Ailor 2 home sometime in the first half of 2012. And in the meantime, we'll continue to enjoy our sweet boy.

Backyard Visitors

While we were doing this ...

And this ...

These girls were visiting our backyard ...

Three deer came by for a visit! We've seen deer tracks in our yard and we've seen deer in the neighborhood before, but today they hung out in our yard for about 10 minutes.

They might have stayed longer if Simon hadn't been shouting and jumping up and down about the "reindeer" in the yard!

Just Another January Sunday

We had a relaxing day today ... it was especially relaxing because I don't have to work on Monday! Meaning that I didn't have to hurry to finish laundry, etc. Love that! So we had a late breakfast in our jammies ...


And put on our matching pea coats to pay a visit to Mamaw and Papaw ...

While Mamaw helped Simon figure out what a sled is ... we hope to try it out on the snow on Monday!

And after dinner, we broke out the Play Doh Fun Factory ... I love new cans of play doh!

Simon created a "birthday cake" and sang Happy Birthday to both of us and then himself. : )

And what better way to end the day than by wearing your other favorite pair of jammies -- the pair that your Aunt Heidi and Cousin Mason gave to you. Simon LOVES to wear "Mason's jammies" and asks for them every night. : )

So thankful for a fun day with my favorite boys!

Simon Ailor, Rock Star

We may have a budding musician on our hands ... Simon loves to play with his new guitar and has also shown interest in our piano.

Notice the 'head-banging' as he plays the guitar ... oh my. I can almost hear 'band practice' in our garage!