Jacob Daniel Norwood

One of my favorite people in the whole universe had her baby tonight. Not finding out what they were having made it extra special and suspenseful. I am so sad that I can't be there to meet him or help her as she heals from her C-section... but I am SO proud to be part of this little guy's life.. even from a distance.

Congratulations Catherine and Johnny!! He is beautiful and I can't wait to hold him.

Now, I don't know for sure, but the nurse is probably saying something like, "Wait a second.. I thought they said this baby is a boy?" ... Umm, Johnny???

tutus and tea

Rainy day inside fun. That's what we did alllll day today. It was so much fun though. I love that my girls would rather play dress up and tea party than watch tv. And I love that Christopher and I are their favorite friends. I know both of those will change sooner than I'd like, so I'm going to savor all these silly moments while they last.

Addison is all about her play kitchen lately. I love it because she and Lorelei play so well with it together. Addison's favorite thing is to make soup and have you taste it. As I pretend to take a sip of the soup, she exclaims, "Too hot!" in hopes of getting a good 'too hot' reaction from me. She loves to practice her different faces. She is quite the character. She and I spent a good hour or so yesterday pretending to cry over the imaginary pancakes she kept dropping on the floor. "No more pancakes... So sad, oh no..." she says. Then she squints, rubs her hand over her eyes and makes pathetic little crying sounds. I'm hoping to catch it on video.

She is also very into tutus. She wears three at a time, and can hardly keep them up. With each one she puts on, she says, "Tutu, too too cute".

She stacks these bowls on her head all day long and sings

"Happy Birthday Me".

Lorelei is a good sport as she puts up with Addison's crazy tutu obsession and birthday bowls. She would rather do all things dainty and princess. She is one ♥ proper little princess ♥ . I was taking some pics of Addison, and I turned to see lorelei sitting like this. She neatly laid her tutu out over her thighs and just sat quietly as she was very pleased with herself.

Lorelei is so thoughtful. She went to a lot of work this afternoon. She came up with the idea to set up this tea party for Addison for her 'faker birthday', while Addison was napping. She moved the chairs from the other room all on her own and even prepared a very special birthday tea, complete with delicious snacks like 'cinnamon spicy cream ice cream'.

I really enjoy how well they play together now that Addison is older. We are so proud of how Lorelei is beginning to strive to be a great big sister for Addison. They have a bond that is so special and I love that I get to be their mom and help them along through life. The day will come all too fast when it's no longer about tutus and tea parties. We will miss these times. I just know it.

Julian

For craft time the other day Lorelei made a paper bag puppet. She took so much time and care to make hers just right. She cut out the shapes and glued them on herself. She named it Julian. She was so proud of it and couldn't wait for Christopher to get home from work so she could show him. We will definitely be making more of these.

I am ever amazed at how big she is and how much she can do on her own. She's pretty awesome.

hangin' out

This is a group of kids at our neighborhood park. We don't know any of them and have never seen them until today. See the little girl in the wagon? Yeah, don't worry. That's Addison. She walked over to them, and without a word, hopped in the wagon and just sat there. The little boy sitting across from her wasn't sure what to think as he just starred at her. I watched her sit there unnoticed by all but the boy in the wagon, for about five minutes. Finally, I walked over and said, "Addison, what are you doing? This isn't your wagon." She replied, "I hang out, Mommy."

♥ them!

I can't help it. I just think these two little girls are so wonderful.

Addison was riding Lorelei's bike. She loves it, even thought she's not good at it.

I think we know what we're getting her for her birthday in a couple of weeks.

She stook here and studied the leaves for a good ten minutes. I wish I knew what

was running through her little brain. She is so fascinated

with everything outside.

Okay, so the funny thing about this picture is that Lorelei dressed herself this day. When I questioned

her choice of socks and shoes, she literally said, "Mom, don't worry about it. They look fine. Ugh." She's got attitude and opinion in overdose. NOT so excited about this when she's a teenager. This picture just makes me laugh with her little legs and high socks. haha I love her!

She is always so excited to ride her bike. She is so good at it now. She even tries doing little

stunts and tricks like standing up, and riding with no hands.. which really isn't much of a feat when you

still have training wheels on. But she doesn't know that yet. ;)

Happy Birthday Christopher!

I'm basically queen of posting things out of order and late.. deal with it. :)

This post is from Christopher's birthday a couple of weeks ago. He had to work, so while he was gone the girls made him a cake. I did very little to help and pretty much let them do it all on their own with a little instruction. It was SO messy, but SO worth all the clean up to watch these two little girls working together for their Daddy.

The week before the girls and I went to the store and picked up all the things we would need for the cake. Lorelei picked a strawberry cake, Addison picked pink frosting. Lorelei picked green decorating frosting, and Addison picked a bottle of pastel candy sprinkle flowers. Their favorite parts were mixing it, decorating, and of course.. eating it. What kid doesn't love cake, right? Here are a few pictures of the cake baking fun.

Step one: dump it all in a bowl.

Lorelei cracked an egg and did fine. Addison cracked the egg, which went down the front of the cabinets, and tossed the shells in the bowl. hahaha then she said with a shrug of her shoulders, "its okay, Mommy." As if, as long as some part of the egg was in the bowl its all the same.

Mixing. Wow. Talk about messy! Lorelei in the background 'reading' how to put on the frosting, as she told me.

After Lorelei wrote Dad in green frosting, they both sprinkled the little pastel colored candies all over the top.

Yes, they used the entire bottle of sprinkles. SO gross. But Chris was a very happy Daddy when he saw this.

play, play, play

Now that it's cooling off (finally), we have been spending a lot of time at the parks around here. It's such a great way for the girls to burn off energy and play with someone other than me. Here are a few pictures.

Lorelei, Addison, and Kiarra. Kiarra is our little neighbor girl that

Lorelei loves to play with every minute of every day.

Lorelei and Addison sharing their snack with Elyse, a new friend

we just met that day. Lorelei asked for a Princess shirt like hers.

Ugh. I loath princess and character clothing.

Addison's sweet sweaty face. I think she was hugging this yellow

thing because it was nice and cool

Lorelei exclaiming to the world that she climbed up this

all by herself.

One of my very favorite pictures of the girls. Lorelei is so in awe of this slide

because it's a "slide for two people", and always insists that Addison go in it with her

since she can't possibly go down it alone.

Lorelei loves to walk Molly to the park. She feels so grown up when she gets to hold the leash and she does a great job, too. The only problem is when Addison then asks to walk Bella. That's never gonna happen. ;)

square-cut princess ones, please!

Lorelei has been asking to have her ears pierced since she was one year old. We always told her that when she was bigger, she could get them done. I wouldn't have cared either way, but it was important to Christopher that it be a decision Lorelei could make on her own. I thought that was cute. For the past two and a half years she has brought it up from time to time and asked over and over. Finally, we were at the mall the other day and to kill time, the girls and I were walking around looking at the jewelry at Sears. Over and over Lorelei would say something like, "Mom, I know THIS would make a beautiful earring for me when I'm big.", as she pointed out rings, necklaces and earrings alike. So as we were headed out of the mall we passed by Claire's and Christopher finally decided to let Lorelei get her ears pierced. He loves that she's so little and, like me, doesn't want her to do big girl things quite yet. I'm not ready for her to be big. She needs to stay little... which I know isn't possible. :(

We went in and I explained that we were in the store that pierces ears. I explained how piercing works and that it would hurt for a few seconds, but then she would have earrings. "Lorelei, would you like to have your ears pierced?" I asked her as we knelt down in the middle of the crowded displays. "Does it hurt like a big blood owie?", she asked. "No, like a pinch. Like this.", as I pinched her earlobe. Her eyes got wide and she calmly said, "Well, maybe I will a different day.", in her sweet little voice. "Okay. That's a fine decision, Sweet Girl." Then she looked around and furrowed her brows little and said, "Well, I think I would like them to get pierced-ed today. Then I will have earrings like McKenna."

So we put her up in the chair and asked her to pick out which earrings she wanted. She chose little diamonds like mine. She even made sure they were 'square cut princess' ones. haha Smart little girl, huh? Lorelei watched so intently as everything was put together and set up. She was so nervous and inquisitive as her ears were cleaned and the gun was loaded. The first pierce caught her totally off guard and she winced in shock for a split second and looked at Christopher with eyes that said, "what the --!?" Then as he explained that her ear was pierced she began to tear up. I grabbed the mirror and showed her and she smiled so big. She was so excited.

Not excited enough, however, to be ready for the next ear. It took a sweet little pep talk from her daddy before she was sitting up tall and ready to do it again. She cried when her second ear was pierced and just hugged Christopher for a minute or two. She was so brave and grown up about the entire thing.

Every day since then, she has thanked us profusely for piercing her ears. She is so thrilled to have earrings and can't wait to show everyone. She is so great about making sure we clean them each day and that they are healing perfectly.

One of my favorites was hearing her explain to Addison that she got her ears pierced. Addison wasn't really paying attention, but that didn't stop Lorelei. "Sister," she said. "I got my ears pierced-ed with earrings because I am big. I know you think they are beautiful, but you can't have any earrings yet. You are just a little baby sister. But I know you will love it! Maybe you will cry. But maybe you will be tough like me because we are both Tilley girls."

I have the sweetest little people ever.

All ready to go and excited to be big enough to pierce her ears

Watching closely as everything is prepared. Lorelei said the lady smelled like a doctor because of the alcohol wipes she was using to clean everything.

Getting cheered up and encouraged by Christopher to get her other ear done.

Here we go!

All done!

lorelei's new passion

I am teaching Lorelei preschool at home this year and we are having a blast. I love the special time together with just she and I while Addison is napping. She is learning to read, and going wonderfully with that. She is a little impatient as she just hopes to pick up a book and be able to know what each page says. We do math and she is a little bored with it because she knows most of what we're doing already. I think it's important to really lay a solid foundation though, so we're making sure nothing is skipped. One of her very favorite things to learn is science. Right now we are studying all about living things and how to tell the difference between something living and something non-living.

Here she is painting about 'living things'. She is so proud that she gets to paint and has a list of all the people she wants to send her paintings to. She literally asks to paint just about every day. She is so sweet I absolutely love this age with her.

she got him, alright.

The girls and I were outside playing the other day when Addison discovered all the squirrels running around. She began to chase one after another all over the grass area behind our yard. Squirrel after squirrel would run from her to the nearest tree and disappear. Addison was circling each tree looking for the squirrels and trying to figure out where they had gone to. Knowing she wasn't going to actually catch one, I left her to run around while I helped Lorelei ride her bike. All of a sudden Addison screams, "I got him, Mommy! I got him!", as she came running from behind a big tree- dead squirrel in hand. Sweet little girl that she is, thought she actually succeeded in capturing a squirrel. How do you explain to a one year old that picking up a decaying squirrel off the ground is indeed different than actually catching one? ...Gross.

Addison's First Birthday

Addison's first birthday. Wow. First, I had a hard time believing it was time for her to turn one. Then again, she was three months when we got her, so maybe in my mind it was only time for her to be turning 9 months old. Ha. I wanted to make her first birthday special, not because she was turning one, but because it was her first birthday with us. Lorelei's first birthday with us was when she turned two and we had a fun party for her, so we wanted to do the same for Addison.

I asked Lorelei, who was two at the time, what kind of party we should have for Addison. She first said we should have a "monster party, but not the nice kind. The scary kind that would make all the children cry. Especially sister." That was no good. But at least we know after nine months that nothing had changed. Lorelei still didn't like Addison all that much. ;)

Finally Lorelei decided on a nice cupcake party. Which was great because that made it SO easy for me. We had it at the playground and invited all the little friends. It was so fun, and even though Addison won't actually remember it, we are so glad we got to celebrate her first birthday in such a special way. Sans monsters.

cupcake shaped Cake Pops that we made. Yummy. If you're into that sort of thing ;)

After eating her cupcake with lots of reluctance, she thought the paper would be a nice 'hat-hat', as she would say

♥ Grandma and Grandpa ♥

Ellie, Brooklyn, and Addison working together to open the loot.

This giraffe came from Tete Alex and Uncle John and she loved it from the first moment she saw it. Almost a year later and it's still one of her very favorites.

the happiest place on earth. or so they say.

Spending time at Disneyland as part of our trip to finalize Lorelei's adoption was so great. It was the perfect way to show Lorelei how wonderful she is and how happy we are that she is our little girl forever. She fully understood what was going on and that we were celebrating the fact that we get to be her forever family.

It was doubly sweet for us because it was literally Christopher's last days with us before he was to be gone for months. After enlisting in the Army, we knew he was leaving, but really there's no great way to prepare for that. We soaked up every moment of family time we could. Being at Disneyland was perfect! Even more perfect was the fact that John, Alex, Mom and Dad could be there too. On to top even that off, my whole family lives right there and spent a few days with us as well. One more example of how blessed we are to have so much love and support for our family. It was truly a wonderful week and perfect for making our last week together less bitter and more sweet.

one, two, free

Another thing that happened while I was neglecting the blog-

Lorelei turned 3!

With so much happening in January we couldnt really plan a party for her. We were waiting to hear when our adoption court date was going to be since we were planning to be out of town for several days. We decided to do a little impromptu cup cake party for her with family and a few close friends. She had been wanting a Toy Story party, so we got some little Toy Story cake toppers for the tops of the cup cakes and then had some balloons. Very low key, but it was so fun.

Of course, we all worked that day and then came home rushing to get everything done. And that's when the oven decided not to work. Perfect, right? Thankfully, Jayne saved the day and she let us bake them in her oven across the street. If it weren't for her, Lorelei's already bleak party would have been even more non existent.

We are so thankful for our friends and family at Hume that were always there to help us celebrate the girls. It's great when you have people you can count on to make your kids feel loved and special. Especially on their special days.

we all look disgusting in these pictures. which i hate.. but they are what they are. i'm just warning you. don't judge us. ;)

snow day

Here are some pictures from a fun little snow day.. months ago, obviously. Lorelei and I built a snowman while Addison was sleeping and Christopher was clearing snow. We had so much fun and Lorelei even got to help drive the bobcat. She later informed me that it was too loud and bumpy for her and she doesn't want to drive it again. :) I thought the pictures were too cute not to share. So here you go.

p.s. i think i have one of the prettiest little girls ever.

no going back now

As many of you know, Lorelei named herself when she was about 16 months old. I was trying to teach her to say "Jade" when asked what her name was. Instead she would shake her head no and respond with "MmMm. Mame, Lorelei." She got the name from Gilmore Girls, which I was watching at the time. Since we were wanting to give her a name of our own as we adopted her, this sort of stuck. Which was great since I really loved the name.. Christopher, not so much. But it has grown on him.

After her adoption was finalized, Chris left for basic and both girls got sick the same week. Lorelei ended up with a double ear infection. The only exciting part for me was walking into the doctors and changing all her record information from Jade to Lorelei.

And then this....

(okay, so it's backwards... and I don't know how to flip it.. sorry)

Adoption Day

The day we had been waiting for since, well, since we first called social services to tell them we wanted to be considered for placement while she was in foster care. That was November of 2007. We got to finalize her adoption on January 2010.

Finalizing Lorelei's adoption was such a special day. Grandma, Grandpa, John and Alex all came down to san bernardino for the court date. Jessikah and Mamaw were there too. We felt so blessed to have so much family there to make her day special. I didn't really know what to expect as far as emotions go. Mostly, I was just relieved to be done with everything. Pressure was high in the weeks leading up to the court date as it was mandatory for Christopher to be present, and he was leaving for basic training on January 31st. We had just a few days buffer in between court and his leaving. I can't imagine what would have happened if the state set our court date after he was gone. God is good and we were blessed.

The judge was such a nice man and it was so evident he truly enjoyed helping build families. He gave Lorelei a special teddy bear and took time to make her feel special.

Here are a few of the pictures..

(I know I have a picture with everyone all together, but I can't seem to find it)

With the judge. Addison kept trying to touch him.

We were just getting started and Addison had had enough already. :)

We took Lorelei shopping and let her pick an outfit to wear for her special day and this is the dress she chose. She will forever call it her 'adoption dress'. I thought it was sort of ugly, but she sure loved it!