Lightning McMunn

Despite the fact that my good friend Jennifer voted for Riblet all the way from Lebanon, my puppy name wasn't the winner. We had to take the puppy to the vet on Tuesday because he had a large, infected area on his left shoulder. Luckily it wasn't a big deal and we're treating it. Apparently he had been bitten by something but he's doing much better now that he's been on medication for the last three days. He's also not looking much like a Riblet anymore! He's packing on muscles! He's so cute!!! Anyway, Jake finally decided to name him Lightning. SHOCKING I know! So his name is Lightning McMunn of course.

Redneck Recreation

In case you've ever wondered what people who live in the country do to keep themselves occupied, here's your answer! We participate in REDNECK RECREATION! Jake came up with this little gem all by himself. It's amazing what you can do to entertain yourself when you put your mind to it! Jake attached a ratchet strap to a creeper and started pulling Olivia all over the drive way. Of course she had to return the favor. This was good for at least 20 minutes of hysterical laughter on my part. The kids had a pretty good time too!!!

PUPPY LOVE!

We were driving on a dirt road near our house this past Saturday when I spotted this sweet little puppy in the ditch. You can literally see every bone in his poor little body. I spent 10 minutes climbing through briars to get to the little fellow when I finally had to enlist Mike's help. Of course it took him all of 20 seconds to catch him. Good grief! My inability to pass by a stranded dog is not one of my better qualities in Mike's eyes, but even he couldn't argue with the fact that we had to bring this puppy home. It irritates the heck out of me that people throw puppies and dogs out that they don't want. We have an animal humane society in our county for goodness sake! Regardless, God allowed our paths to cross and we now have a new - yet to be named - doggy at our house. We've been discussing names. For now the kids are just calling him Puppy. Our friend Robby thought we should name him Spuds McKenzie for obvious reasons. I want to name him Riblet, simply because you can see all of his little ribs, but so far I'm not winning the name contest. Perhaps Jake will come up with something soon so our new pet can have a much deserved name. In the meantime, Jake and Olivia are having lots of fun playing with their new friend and even Phideaux likes him! He's a sweet little guy and we're happy to add him to our family.

Puppy cuddling!

Olivia isn't usually all that fond of dogs (especially Deacon since he outweighs her by about 75 pounds) but she loves our little puppy. Perhaps it's because she's actually bigger than he is!

How cute is he?!?!?!?!

Yep, this definitely looks like puppy love!

Olivia as Buzz Lightyear and Jake as Spiderman!

Where in the heck is Nemo?

Nemo was all the rage in our house just two years ago. We've loved Elmo, Bob the Builder, The Wiggles (Mike has since exiled our 4 colorful friends from our house completely), Barney... you get the idea. Now all of a sudden our house is filled with Spiderman, Batman and Superman (are you seeing a trend here?) Then two or three weeks ago, completely out of the blue, the Power Rangers took over my 4 year old son's interest and it's all I hear about. Lightning McQueen is about the only animated character that is surviving at our house these days. So again I ask, where in the heck is Nemo? Where is lovable old Barney or ticklish little Elmo????

My point: my baby is growing up, but let's not go crazy yet. I'm very pleased to say that Jake is still a Mama's boy. I can see him growing though right before my eyes. If he's given the chance to go out and work in the shop with his Daddy, he's out the door faster than you can say, "to the Batmobile!" For the last week or so he's been working on his "web throwing." Olivia doesn't have a favorite character. Although she looks awfully cute in a Buzz Lightyear costume as you can see! She can generally be seen with her Barbie cell phone though. It's rarely out of her hand for long.

My children aren't even in school yet and already I'm mourning the passing of their childhood. They are just growing up too quickly!!!

Four Months Today!!!

Olivia has been an official member of our little Munn family for 4 months now. In some ways it seems like it's been two weeks and in others it seems like years. 1/4 of a year down! I can't believe how much she has changed in that short amount of time. I was tucking her in for her nap and she asked me to sing "little star" as she calls it. Usually half way through the song she says, "WAIT!!!! ME ME!!" and she'll sing it so beautifully with her sweet, soft little voice. Of course only a few of the words are right, but it's still absolutely beautiful to this Mommy's ears. She just takes my breath away. Both of my children do. Oh my goodness. I just can't tell you what these beautiful babies mean to me. They are so so precious. God loves me SO SO SO much to give me these sweet angels. Time is flying though. They won't be my "babies" for much longer. Olivia will be 3 in just 3 short months. Jake is 4 but that 5 looming in December is awfully foreboding. I certainly want him to grow another year older, but 5 isn't a baby anymore. 5 is a big boy who will go to school next year. 5 is big enough to play league t-ball. 5 is too darn old, too darn fast. Where did the time go? My days and nights keep zooming by, but I'm loving every single minute of it. Again, I am so blessed!!!

Speaking of loving every single minute of life, Mike and I actually had a date night last week!!! That is the first time the two of us have been away from Olivia at all since she's been our daughter. She and Jake stayed with JuJu for about 3 hours while we went to El Dorado for dinner. We also went by to see our friends Mary and Bobby and their new baby boy, Landon at the hospital but he was being poked and prodded so we didn't get to see him that day. We were able to visit with our good friends though and that was nice. Mostly it was nice going out with my husband!! The nicest part of the whole evening were the quiet rides to and from El Dorado. It was so strange being in the car for 30 minutes without hearing Mommy 10,000 times from the backseat. It was strange having a conversation without being interrupted. It was also very strange eating an entire meal without having to take someone to the bathroom, cut someone's food up, or wipe up a spill. Very strange - and very wonderful! I'm also thrilled to say that Livi did GREAT at JuJu's!!! She has really taken to JuJu over the last month or so and we are so happy about that. They all went to my sister-in-law's for supper and then back to JuJu's and Livi never cried one time all night long!!! JuJu said she asked about us once but that was it. I was so proud!! I'm also excited because that means we can go out again! More importantly, it means I won't miss the first day of turkey season. I thought for sure there was no way I would get Olivia to spend the night away from us, but I think it's certainly possible now. I'm so excited!!!!!!!!!

Other excitement at our house is my new landscaping project in the front yard. I planted three new flower beds yesterday and Mike made me a beautiful new path from the driveway to the front door. It's made from cuts of cedar trunk and it's really neat looking. I'll try to get pictures posted when we're all done. It's looking really good!

We like MIKE!

In case you haven't noticed, my blog is now wearing a nifty new presidential campaign "button." Please click my lovely campaign button to read more about former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, who this family sincerely hopes will be the next President of our GREAT UNITED STATES!!! Ok. I'm done talking politics for now.

jewels from JAKE & OLIVIA

* So the other day I was standing in front of the sink in my bathroom. I had just gotten out of bed and wasn't dressed yet. Jake came up to me and said, "Mommy, what's your booty doing?" To which I aptly repled, "growing." Jake said, "Mommy, you have a little booty." I love this kid!

* Occasionally Olivia comes to me while I'm in the middle of something and says, "Mommy, potty." She also holds her little girl "area" with her hand at the same time which is super cute. Depending on what I'm doing, sometimes I say, "Ok. Wait just one second and I'll take you." Then she goes into whatever room Jake is in, wailing to her brother, "JAKE!!!!!!!! POTTTTTTTTYYYYY!" She adores her big brother and he LOVES helping take care of her. He takes her to the potty, picks her up, puts her on the toilet and gets her some toilet paper. It is the cutest thing you've ever seen. Then he comes back up there with her and says, "Mommy, Livi teetee'd in the potty." He just wants to make sure I know he's taken care of it. He's such a good boy!

* Olivia loves to dress up. Not necessarily in her "dress up" clothes, but just in her everyday clothes. The other day she came into the living room wearing panties, pants over them, then shorts over the pants, then more panties over the shorts. Did I mention she also loves shoes? Oh dear.

* I bought the soundtrack to Walk the Line back several months ago because we all - especially Jake - love Johnny Cash. Walk the Line is one of his favorite movies. It's the only thing he wants to listen to in the car and he has memorized nearly every song on the soundtrack. There are a couple we don't listen to. One is about cocaine - we don't listen to this for obvious reasons. The second is an Elvis song about his "milk cow" referring to his significant other. Hmmm. Wonder why Mommy isn't crazy about a song referring to women as milk cows. Anyway, if you're ever around Jake, ask him to sing his favorite Johnny Cash song and if he's not feeling terribly shy he'll start belting out "It ain't me, babe" which happens to be #11 on the cd and our family's favorite secular song. There's a song by TobyMac that I love called Gone that Jake also has started asking to listen to and he's learning the words to it as well. I LOVE that my children love to sing!!! I should also point out that Olivia likes to sing along, too. She doesn't know the words but that doesn't keep her from mumbling loudly!

* The beginning of spring is apparently a time for babies! Three of my friends have had babies in the past three weeks and another good friend of mine just found out that she is very unexpectedly, but happily, pregnant. I sure hope there isn't something in the water. I better quit drinking from the tap just in case. We went to visit my friend Jennifer yesterday who just gave birth to a beautiful baby girl named Kalli three weeks ago. She was a preemie, but is doing great. Jake just loved her to death and wanted to take her home with us. I asked him if he wanted a new baby brother or sister and he said yes. I laughed and told him he would have to pray about that. Mike wasn't amused. Hmmm. We're planning to go see our good friends Bobby and Mary's baby this evening. He was born on Monday night. I can't wait to get my hands on a 3 day old baby! I've seen pictures of little Landon and he's absolutely precious!!!! A couple of cries and a dirty diaper later though and I'll be completely over my new baby thoughts. Mike will be pleased.

* There have been a series of mishaps at our house lately. I'm sorry to say that Jake seems to have inherited his father's proneness to accidents. Mike tried to cut the end of his finger off with a table router last week and nearly succeeded. This is one of MANY MANY MANY accidents he's had in his lifetime. Back to Jake's story now. Daddy Don's four wheeler trailer is at our house and the ramp on the back is held up by two large pins. Jake decided to load his Lightning McQueen car on the trailer last week - by himself. This is what happens when you take your eyes off your children for 15 seconds. Jake let the pins out and the ramp (which ways 40 or 50 pounds) FELL. We can only assume that it hit Jake's car on the way down because something broke it's fall a bit. Regardless, it hit Jake on the side of the head on the way down, knocking him onto the concrete and pinning him between the concrete and the ramp. Mike got to him seconds after it happened and ran him into the house to me. I've never seen Mike so panicked in my life. Jake cried for a few minutes then I washed him face and put a bag of frozen veggies on his scrape and waited to see what would happen. Luckily he was fine and it ended up just being a couple of bumps on the head and a scrape down his cheek. It could have been MUCH worse. I was definitely thanking God that it wasn't as bad as it could have been. If you have a trailer with a ramp, PLEASE either leave the ramp down or take the ramp off. The ramp is off Daddy Don's now and it will remain that way.

* Jake has a Pirates of the Carribean parrot that repeats what you say. Right this second Olivia is holding it saying, "bubble gum." It's repeating it back to her. She thinks this is fabulous. She is so precious!!

* Speaking of Olivia talking, people often ask me if she can talk yet and if so what can she say. The question isn't what she CAN say, but what CAN'T she say?? She talks all the time. It's amazing!!!!!!! She can ask for essentially anything and lately her favorite word is "alright." She says this in answer to all of my questions. I like that word. It's much better than, "no." Ha! She's also a good whiner which isn't a good thing. We're working on it though. Maybe that's just a girl thing. Regardless, it's incredibly annoying and it's certainly not something we tolerate at this house. Unless of course I'm the one doing the whining then it's okay :<) Mike would argue with that point, but he doesn't write on this blog (or even read it for that matter) so he doesn't get a say! This will be the one time he reads it and he'll give me a stern look. Even Mike's stern looks are adorable though so I'm not too worried. Have I mentioned how crazy in love I am with that man? Just thinking about him now makes me smile. I'm the luckiest girl in the world.

How do you like my new hair style? It is compliments of Princess Olivia. I've waited my whole life for a daughter who wanted to fix my hair, and here she is! I personally think it looks lovely, but I am a bit biased. I happen to be crazy in love with the stylist! My Mom was a hairdresser for many years before her hands became to crippled by rheumatoid arthritis to work in her salon. Then she became the secretary at the elementary school in the small town where I grew up. She would be proud to see Olivia playing with my hair. Of course she's got a great view of it all from heaven. I can't wait until Olivia's old enough to actually fix my hair. It's a pain to flat iron the back. It will be most helpful to have a daughter around who wants to do it for me!

Who is this kid???

Olivia is fast asleep in my lap with her head on my chest as I type this. I remember very well the very first time I blogged with her asleep like this. I was sitting in a fabulous resort hotel on the beach in Phan Rang, Ninh Thuan, Vietnam and it was November 21, 2006 - the day Olivia officially became our daughter.

More than three months have passed since that day and it shows! Everynight, Mike and I sit with the kids in the living room and we sing two lullabies and then say our prayers. Then we tuck Jake in and say goodnight and then it's Livi's turn. She climbs into her little toddler bed and I sing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star to her. I've know from the time Jake was four months old that we would one day adopt and I chose to save that song just for her. If I ever sang it to Jake it wasn't very often. He has his own special songs, but Twinkle Twinkle Little Star belongs just to Olivia. It's our song. I rub her back and then she puts her arms up in the air for a big hug. I hug her tight and give her a kiss on the lips and she puts her index finger up and says, "one more!" She does this 5 or 6 times before I finally quit giving in. She blows me a kiss goodnight as I walk out the door.

That's where my blog title comes in. Who is this kid??? This is definitely not the same little girl we met three months ago on the other side of the world. She's not even the same little girl that we knew on Christmas. She's changing everyday. It's just amazing. She has become more and more comfortable with us as time has gone on and just in the last couple of weeks it seems like she's finally decided that this is her home and she feels safe and free to do whatever she wants.

She is talking up a storm, too. I was so worried about the language barrier, but it really hasn't been an issue at all. She picked up English SO QUICKLY! She even said her first 5 word sentence last week. Our neice Emma gave her a shamrock pin (actually JuJu gave it to Emma to give to Livi) and later at the house I asked Olivia where she got it. She said perfectly clearly, "Emma gave it to me." I was SO PROUD!!!!!!!!!!! She is just amazing!

She and Jake are - in the words of Forrest Gump - like peas and carrots. They are just best friends and it's absolutely awesome. They fuss over toys sometimes but that's it. They are crazy about each other and love to play together. I'm so glad that they are so close in age. They are 18 months apart and it's perfect.

There were days in the beginning that I thought we would never mesh as a family. It's amazing what a little time, faith and hard work will do! I honestly can't imagine life without Olivia now. She is the funniest, sweetest, most beautiful little girl in the whole world. Mike and I are so blessed to have these two precious children!!!