That thoughtful bunny put balloons in Willow's basket.
Shani gave them matching dresses, and Lily was so excited she wanted to wear them for Easter. She loves matching her sister - I wonder how long that will last!
We had Easter dinner at my parents' house with my sister's family (hi Grace!), Jeff and Debbie, uncle Bob, and grandma King. 
My staff/friends at church had a shower for Willow (and Lily) last night. The girls were both showered with gifts and blessings! We all got these adorable matching aprons from Kathy Williams and Lily put hers on before the sun was entirely up to cook us eggs this morning.
I will go back to work on April 27th. My mom will watch the girls that first week to ease the transition of me being gone, then they'll go to day care together for the last 5 weeks of my school year. Last week we all went to the day care home for an hour together and Willow didn't go far away from me. Today I dropped them off for a couple hours without me and Willow did GREAT! She cried at first, but only for about 10 minutes. Then she'd look at the door once in a while and holler "MOM!", but no more tears over it. I did about a million errands in those 2 hours and couldn't wait to see her. Lily stayed for the rest of the afternoon because she missed her friends.
It's finally warm enough to hang out at the park without coats and mittens!
This face just melts me:
Willow loves to hear me say words to her. We spend most of every meal saying the name of the food she's pointing to over and over again. She says "MOM!" like a big kid now - until yesterday it was "mmmmmma" or "mama". It's really cute! She said "kee" for kleenex today (I knew what she wanted because of where her finger was when she said it). She says "All done" after she's done eating or drinking or playing or in the tub. She says "wa wa" for milk and water. I'm praying every day she keeps adding a couple words to her vocabulary. There will much less stress when we can completely understand each other.
Shani gave them matching dresses, and Lily was so excited she wanted to wear them for Easter. She loves matching her sister - I wonder how long that will last!We had Easter dinner at my parents' house with my sister's family (hi Grace!), Jeff and Debbie, uncle Bob, and grandma King. 
My staff/friends at church had a shower for Willow (and Lily) last night. The girls were both showered with gifts and blessings! We all got these adorable matching aprons from Kathy Williams and Lily put hers on before the sun was entirely up to cook us eggs this morning.
On the way to the shower she said "Mom? I might not like their shower as much as ours." I said "What are you talking about?" She goes "Am I going to have to stand up in their shower?" She thought we were taking showers at the gal's house! I can't believe she just climbed into the car willingly - no questions asked - thinking we were taking showers.
As we were leaving the shower I noticed Lily had a gallon size ziplock bag, and was filling it with potato chips from the table. I gasped and stopped her - "We do NOT take food home with us". I asked the hostess if Lily had asked her for those chips (hoping fiercly that the answer would be "No. I asked her to take them home"). She said "No. She asked me for a bag". I was mortified. Lily asked her for a bag to fill with chips to take home with us! As soon as I started scolding, Lily started crying, then Barb was smoothing things over and I was trying to undo the shaming I'd started, etc. etc. I know this is a conversation we should have in private, but I wanted the people at the shower to know I didn't ENDORSE this, and I truly wanted to drive home the point that this is definitely not good manners. On the way home I apologized for embarrassing her and admitted it was partly my fault because I hadn't ever taught her that it's not good manners to ask for bags of food to take home (except at grammy's house). Lily was fine with all of it and added "My foster mother never taught me anything about manners, mom." She has been "remembering" a LOT about her foster mother lately (ever since Willow's foster mother has been mentioned on a daily basis). Those poor foster mothers are getting blamed for a lot of bad behavior in my house.
I will go back to work on April 27th. My mom will watch the girls that first week to ease the transition of me being gone, then they'll go to day care together for the last 5 weeks of my school year. Last week we all went to the day care home for an hour together and Willow didn't go far away from me. Today I dropped them off for a couple hours without me and Willow did GREAT! She cried at first, but only for about 10 minutes. Then she'd look at the door once in a while and holler "MOM!", but no more tears over it. I did about a million errands in those 2 hours and couldn't wait to see her. Lily stayed for the rest of the afternoon because she missed her friends.
It's finally warm enough to hang out at the park without coats and mittens!
This face just melts me:
Willow loves to hear me say words to her. We spend most of every meal saying the name of the food she's pointing to over and over again. She says "MOM!" like a big kid now - until yesterday it was "mmmmmma" or "mama". It's really cute! She said "kee" for kleenex today (I knew what she wanted because of where her finger was when she said it). She says "All done" after she's done eating or drinking or playing or in the tub. She says "wa wa" for milk and water. I'm praying every day she keeps adding a couple words to her vocabulary. There will much less stress when we can completely understand each other.
She was chatting on her play cell phone this afternoon and handed it to me to play along. I pretended to talk to grammy. She still won't interact with grammy at ALL, so I was laying it on thick with "I love you grammy. Thank you grammy. You love Willow too, Grammy? OK - you can talk to Willow..." When I handed Willow the phone she shook her finger at me and said "No! NO! NO!" She refused to pretend to talk to grammy on a play phone. This could be because I've had to leave her 3 times (for church choir rehearsals and the movie with Lily) and each time Grammy's been with her). Or it could be because of the memories of Guatemala. Or it could be because Willow knows this drives us all CRAZY and she is stubborn enough to just keep doing it.
Tomorrow we're going to Como Zoo to see the baby giraffe named Willow. Lily doesn't know where we're going - it's a surprise. Shhhhh!
