sugar and turkey sillyness

Hmmm, this is us after lots of food and desserts .. yep, the silliness comes out ..

Who can make the silliest face ??

I think daddy did 

Daddy snuggles

Our little fabulous silly family !!

Happy thanksgiving !!

Happy thanksgiving to all our family and friends, and our birth families close and far away. I hope you know how much we appreciate your support and love for our little family. Especially this summer was hard, but we came out on top !! Every year, we get invited in june (!) By my boss robin yo spend thanksgiving with her family and 20 of her closest homeless" friends. I guess after 6 years we are not a homeless for thanksgiving family any more, we can always count on robin and her family to make us feel like part of theirs. 5 years ago we took the superman picture and we wanted to recreate it this year .. poor aran did not realize how big lilja had gotten ..happy thanksgiving everyone !! "

Well, remember when I was trying to maybe get a trampoline for lilja's birthday.. well, the insurance and liability were too much to handle so we let it go.. however, we are house sitting and jt has a little trampoline. Lilja is showing me very enthusiastic that she really, really, really wants one for x-mas. I think we can handle that :))

dancing queen

Lilja is getting "into" barbies, here she is dancing to a very inspirational song of her barbie movie. Note her outfit.. two different socks and her bow in her hair. That is all lilja's ideas.. she is getting a cute corky style in fashion and in dancing . I guess we need to put her in dance class again.

November 15th 2009

6 years ago our lives changed drastically .. on veteran's day 2009 we got the call that Jasmin had chosen us to hopefully adopt her little baby girl. We were ecstatic, cautious, scared and elated. We have never felt all these emotions at once and probably never will. We had lost a little one after a month and ofcourse we were raw with emotions, but at a certain point you have to look into the future instead of in the past. Here was a birthmom that wanted to meet us. And we were ready to meet her. . On saturday November 14th 2009 we met jasmin and talked to her for a long time , gauging eachother to see if we would be a good match for her and her little girl . We really wanted an open adoption as we felt that was important for the baby we would adopt and for our family and so you really want to make sure that this mom would be a match into your family for life . And jasmin was amazing and beautiful and sweet and was willing to be involved in her baby girls life as long as lilja needed her . Two hours later we met lilja. wow, this little girl with a full head of hair was following our ever move and we fell in love at first sight . The placement ceremony was the next day, so very emotional. After some beautiful exchanges between jasmin and us and a promise to be there for lilja as a triangle of love, we said our " see you soon" and took Lilja home . We could not wish for a more involved birthmom and we have been lucky to also have met lilja's birthdad three years later. People tell you not to say that lilja is a lucky girl, because she has gone through some grief early in life. But i feel when I look at lilja's triangle of love around her.. she is lucky; to have us, her birthmom, birthdad, mimi, her grandparents, aunts and uncles , all so involved.. she is lucky.. and so are we .

Beautiful Jasmin 

Add caption

family bike ride 1

family bike ride

last couple of weeks

Lilja and I have been pretty sick a couple of weeks ago. Lilja ended up with croup and ended with a bad cough that I ofcourse ended up with. So not a lot of pictures as we did not do much. But here are the ones we got .

Our first snow of the season.. lilja was ready !! And loving the snow 

Love the pretty smiles she is giving now 

She loves her new soft fluffy gloves 

Momma ' s attempt to a heart pancake

Today was family day and we did our first bike ride all the way down on the river trail. Lilja really surprised me how far she rode and loving it ! Those little legs turned so fast !!

Family day November 2015!! 

She rode all the way past walmart !! So proud of her !!

Lilja's birthday party !!

Yeah I did it. Sorry for the hold up, but all my photos of lilja's party were deleted by one of her friends that likes to play with my phone. Luckily aran just got a new phone and was taking pictures.

 Can you believe it, lilja is 6 !! She is getting so big, has her own strong will, is the funniest little girl I know and just a joy to be around . This year she wanted to ask some of her new friends from school, so the number of kids got big enough not to want to do the party at our house. So the mason center gym was the obvious choice . Lots of room, lots of jumping and a clean up crew at the end !!

Lilja is turning into a girlie girl. Pink everything, but with an edge, she loves black.. so her cheetah cake had to be pink and black ...and that dress !!..and the flower.. all her own ideas

Love lilja's interaction with her friends , that is rachel .

Oh my...

Parachute play at the end

She got some great gifts, lots of art stuff !! Her favorite past time 

Lilja and violet.. great friends 

She loved her cake. Notice the tiara on the top. She wore that later , also her idea.. am I in trouble or what ?

the two finger trigger and with eyes closed ?

Sunday bbgun 101

Yep, daddy got her a pink bb gun. Not sure if it is for lilja , but it is pink so I give aran the benefit of the doubt.. he sure loves to shoot it . Lilja is starting to feel a little better, this is always the hardest day, right between sick and feelibg better. She started climbing the walls a little so we went to the lake and threw some rocks and when we got back her first shooting lesson began.

Look through the sights..she is actually using two fingers to pull the trigger. The bb gun is pretty big fir such a little girl. Aran got right into safety rules, so please do not worry ... plus it did not even pop the balloon, so not a lot of power .. good start  

I love how aran teaches lilja, so patient, direct but loving .. no fiddledaddleing around the subject .

Lilja's next targets for bbgun 102 lesson 

She even hit the balloon a couple of times .. she is a good shot !

At the little lake , these are the smiles that you know she is not feeling a 100%

Sorry at that point we were not thinking about hair ties.