Friday, October 22, 2010

Meet the Sitters!


At the risk of sounding like a broken record, I decided it still important to share another first for our girl, as Brian and I were rejoicing after this one!  You are looking at Lucy's first "real" babysitters!   This past weekend Brian and I enjoyed our first outing together--minus Lucy.  The occasion:  the University of South Carolina vs. University of Kentucky football game.  As you can imagine, this was a long day, between tailgating, the game, traffic...  All in all we were gone for 8 hours.  Lucy did great!   Eleven year old Lily Kate is our friends' (Johanna and Ross) daughter.  She adores Lucy and did so much to help out. Shannon (our friend's sister) took the reigns and braved the task of being the first person to watch Lucy for that long of a period of time.  Brave soul.  Poor Shannon had to put up with all my neurotics and lists and texts.... bless her.   I question now why I worried so much.  I must continue to remind myself of something I wrote in a prior post:  the amazing resiliency of children and the importance of putting our trust in God... lessons I am obviously still working on. Alas, other than bedtime, Lucy didn't cry a peep.  Alleluia!

So for any of you football lovers, you must know that the game was a real nail biter, with South Carolina losing in the last minute.  Being with my brother (a South Carolina alum)/sister-in-law, and our UK friends Johanna and Ross, posed quite the dilemma for us.  But Brian and I have developed an affinity for South Carolina through my brother, so this was our team.  Needless to say, the loss was a disappointment, but we still had a blast. Thanks to Ray and Jessica, Johanna and Ross for organizing this great get together.  What a blessing to spend a beautiful day with family and friends while Lucy was well cared for. 



Thursday, October 14, 2010

"Lucy Rocks!"

Lucy and I made a quick trip to Indy recently.  One of the highlights was going to Aunt Lisa's second grade classroom for a visit.  Lisa's kids were so sweet, saying slowly and in unison "Hi Lucy" when we first walked in!  They were working on literacy, so a few of the kids wrote some nice messages to Lucy while she "toured" the classroom and met everyone.  One of those messages (which my dad is holding in the third picture below) I can't argue with...
 


We also had a chance to visit with Fr. Bob, who baptized Lucy and married Brian and I.  She actually let him hold her this time (she wasn't so sure of anyone holding her back in February).  While Fr. Bob and I went out to lunch, Lucy had her first playdate--alone--with just Grammy and Papa! We had such a great time and will treasure the memories for years to come.

Tuesday, October 5, 2010

Sunflower Festival

Some of you who have followed the blog from the beginning may remember that around this time last year many special things were happening.   It was the Monday after the Sunflower Festival in 2009 that we saw pictures of Lucy for the first time and got news that our long wait to bring her home was coming to an end.  Brian and I have many fond memories of being at the Sunflower Festival last year, surrounded by all of God's beauty and all those thousands of ladybugs (a sign of good luck in the Chinese adoption community ).  We sensed our pending news and were filled with excitement. So we thought it only appropriate to take Lucy to the rolling sunflower fields this past weekend to have our "full circle" moment.



Even though the weather was a bit brisk (15 degrees below average for this time of the year), Lucy enjoyed every minute of it.  She is growing to love animals and was quite brave with them, as you can see from the pictures.

As I think back over these past 10 months, one scripture quote comes to mind:
"My cup runneth over..." Psalms 23:5