Birthday Party & Tree Lighting

Saturday we had a busy, busy day. We started out at Livi Lou's 2nd birthday party. It was a gymnastic party. The kids had so much fun and I got to see The Royal Family! I just have to say that those 2 boys are even cuter in person than they are on the 'ole blog, I know hard to believe!

Here is the birthday girl and Morgie.

Morgan doing her warm-ups.

The girls doing one of the games.

I don't know what was going on when I took this picture, but I just love it! Doesn't she look like such a little gym rat?!?!?!

The birthday girl, Olivia. Happy Birthday to the BIG 3 year old! What a cutie pie!

Morgan on the balance beam during free time.

Daddy & Zach on the slide!

After the party we all went home for some rest and then we got back out and took the kiddo's to the Christmas Tree Lighting at The Avenues of Forsyth. It was cold as crud and sprinkled one time, but I am so glad that we went ahead and decided to go. Morgan looked like a little eskimo!

Here are the girls with their umbrella's the one time that it sprinkled a little. They loved it!

Our first sighting of Santa. He had the nights honor of lighting the tree!

The tree was beautiful after it Santa did his job.

A pic of all the kids before we left. Aren't they cute!!

And the girls.....they were too busy eating their suckers to take a picture, but still cute! Monkey see, monkey do!

A busy but good weekend. The kids loved seeing Santa and the big tree. This weekend is just as busy....I can tell that the holidays are coming!!!!

Spoiled Rotten

Morgan had her last visit with her mom two Fridays ago. It was a mess. I had decided to take that day off and stay for the whole visit so that Morgan would know that I was there and be able to see me if she needed to. Good thing because she came to find me about 6 times over the course of the visit to make sure that I was still there. It was supposed to be a 4 hour visit. I was really happy about that (NOT!!!!). She was an hour late which was good because it took me that long to get Morgan to get off of me and have something to do with her parent aide and case worker. I felt sooo sorry for her. I don't think that I will ever forget the look on her face when I told her where we were going that morning. The case worker said that her mom was ignoring her and that she played with the parent aide the whole time. On top of everything else, her mother somehow managed to get high sometime during the visit. It was horrible! Luckily my mom came to sit with me while I waited after she got off from work. We literally ran out of there with our baby when it was over. I felt so sorry for her that I would have given her anything that weekend. The following pictures are evidence of just that!

This would be Morgan showing Nana her 2 new goldfish (Dori & Shamu) while telling Papa about them on the phone.




The 2 fish. This is love people. Everyone that knows me knows of my aversion to fish.... All I have to say is it was that or a cat.....

Somehow the child managed to end up with both! Below is a pic of Morgie and Libby.

Thankfully it isn't real. It is one of those FurReal pets. She loves this thing. She takes it almost everywhere with her and tucks it into all of her coats to keep it warm. Too sweet!

So, it has been a VERY rough week and a half around our house. Morgan is struggling. I think that we are beginning to see signs of her leveling off again. I hope so. I can't wait till the day that she feels safe in her world and realizes that this is her "new normal" with no visits and no DFCS! Oh how I long for the day......

I just had to throw this last pic in because she is too cute for words!

I still have at least one more post to catch up on from Livi's party this weekend and the Tree Lighting at the Avenues so stay tuned!

One more step to BIG girl....

Notice anything different????? Look closely......

I picked Morgan up from school early on Wednesday and was looking for something to do with her so that she would have fun. First we went to Dairy Queen and she got an ice cream. She ended up saying that she wanted to get her ears pierced TODAY! I did everything that I could to talk her out of it at least until the weekend, but she wouldn't hear it....I guess she figures she has had to wait long enough already. We went to a jewelry store and they didn't have two people there to do it at the same time. We let her pick out which ones that she wanted and told her that they would clean them and have them all ready for her when she came back and he asked her ok? She leaned over to me and whispered....."I think that that it a NO!" After much pouting I decided to just take her to Claire's. She did really good and even counted for them to do it.

So, I give you my little girl who is turning in to a BIG girl a little too quickly for her Mommy.....

My girl with her pierced ears. She waited a long time to get this wish! Congrats baby girl!

ps...stay tuned I have at least 2 more post that I have to catch up on...maybe later this evening I can get to them.

Times have changed for sure.....

Ok, some things just really make you realize just how much times have changed. When I was a kid I would take the Sears Wish Book and circle everything that I wanted for Christmas.

Apparently Christmas shopping has changed a little over the years.....

"Look Mommy it's Kit & Ruthie!!!!"

Hummmm, maybe I should just get Bitty some new clothes......hummmmmm

Shopping in the Sears Wish Book is a far cry from the American Girl catalog! But..... I have to say it was the cutest thing ever and she squealed for about an hour over EVERYthing in that book. It's pretty safe to say if it comes in an American Girl box my girl with LOVE it!!!!

She's pretty cute so I would say Santa may just grant a few of those wishes, I mean who could resist....

Happy Halloween!!!

I hope that everyone had as great of a Halloween as we did. As you can see Morgan chose to be (drum roll please)..........

Snow White

Her favorite part of the costume........the shoes, of course!!!!

We got ready at Nana & Papa's house and did trick or treat with them and Sissy & Molly and then walked up to Papa Clay's.

Morgan with the sign outside of Mema & Papa's house.

We did take the time to stop and smell the roses.

We met John, Lissa, Chey, & Iz Man at my parents house. Here are all 3 in the one and only picture that I could get all three of them in for any kind of posed picture.

A witch, Snow White, and a Pirate.

5 cousins at my aunts house.

Another picture of our caravan at another aunts house.

This aunt gave out popcorn hands, how creative. I loved it as much as Morgan did!!

We saw another cousin there. Isn't she the cutest Raggedy Ann ever????

It was a great night for many reasons, not just the obvious part of it being Halloween. I will always, always remember Halloween was one of the best nights of my life now.....because at 5pm on Friday night Morgan's mothers right were offically terminated. It was the end of her 10 days to back out.

Happy Halloween Friends!!!!

One step closer...

We had two court dates this week on Tuesday and Wednesday. Everyone involved spent hours and hours preparing for it. Me and my Mom were a nervous wreck all day Monday and Tuesday morning. We got there and there were 2 cases before ours. Morgan's mothers attorney didn't show up until time to go in (which means late!) and she hadn't spoken to her client in over 8 months. She immediately asked for time with her client and was grudingly granted 15 minutes. When they came back in the aunt's attorney said that she was going to withdraw her motion to intervene, which was our best case scenerio (or so we thought!). So, she had to stand up and state that she wasn't being forced to do this and that it was her intent. She stated yes and then the mom's attorney asked for more time with her client. So, they all left again for 10 minutes this time. When they came back she said that she needed a few more minutes and the Judge was getting REALLY irritated. She asked to approach the bench to explain and all the attorneys went forward. She got more time. This time when she came in she went to the Judge and he appeared VERY IRRITATED and pointed toward the DFCS table. She walked over and whispered to them for a few minutes and it seemed that they were all debating something. By this point I might have needed a small dosage of nerve meds..... Anywho, she finally started walking toward me and asked me and my mom to come with her. The supervisor of DFCS met us outside the door and asked if I was comfortable talking to Morgan's mom alone with my mom. I agreed and we went into a conference room. After 20 heartbreaking minutes of talking and LOTS of tears we entered the court room again. Morgan's mother had decided to sign over her rights. After another hour or so while all the papers were being signed in the court room most of us all stood out in the hall in complete shock. My mom finally started calling people. Our case worker came out to to talk to us and began explaining that she had 10 days to back out. If that happened then we would just go back to court immediately. So, on October 31st at 5pm her mothers rights are officially terminated. Then we can start the good stuff. I know that everyone is wondering when the adoption will occur....all I can say is the way that I have it figured it will be early next year. I know that that seems like a long time, but to me and my family that day is a formality. Morgan has been ours for a long, long time. Don't get me wrong I can't wait till that day, but I was more anxious to get visits stopped than anything. They just keep Morgan in a whirlwind that is becoming increasingly harder for her to recover from.

Anyway, I wanted really badly to just go get Morgan at school after we left court. But after we talked about it we decided to just let my Dad go ahead and pick her up and take her to the park like he had promised her. Me and mom decided to be there when they arrived. As it turned out everyone got a surprise because when I pulled up my aunt Doris was there waiting for all of us. She was so excited she left work early and couldn't wait to see us. Here is a pic of her and Morgan.

Morgan had tons of fun and my dad made her a little walking stick. She pretends that everything is a walking stick like my Papa's.

Me & Morgie on the slide.

Morgan with Nana & Papa. I just have to say that that is one very proud set of grandparents.

I just have to say that Morgan has both of them wrapped around her finger and she KNOWS it! I almost died when my dad got up on the playground and slide down to Morgan on her command. I guess he knows who the boss is!

Complete with a BIG huge at the bottom.

"Um, really Mommy with the camera....is all that really necessary???"

My silly, silly girl......

we are one very BIG step closer!

Tally Ho!!

Today we finally cashed in Morgan's birthday present from Bethie, a 1 hour riding lesson. Morgan was so excited. This is her when we first got there and she got her riding helmet on.....looking a little unsure about this all of a sudden.

Morgie riding around the arena.

Then she got to go for a ride down the stables long driveway, Papa walked beside her.

Morgan's favorite thing was telling Comet to "Whoa!"

Look at her. What a BIG girl! She loved it and did everything that they told her to. I was amazed.

Molly petting one of the other horses while Morgan was riding.

After riding Morgan got to feed the horses treats. She was very, very excited about this. She talked about feeding the horses apples and carrots as much as she did about riding them!!

Feeding Comet a well deserved apple.

Then Morgan got to help brush Comet. She liked this too.

On the way out Nana and Morgan fed some of the other horses.

I love this one. Mr Horse is like gimme, gimme, gimme......and Morgan is like Um, No way!

I took some cute pics after we were finished. Here is one of Morgan sitting on top of the fence.

And I just love this one. One of my favorites.

Morgan had a great time. She will probably talk about it non-stop for a while.

So, we just have to say....THANKS BETHIE!!!!