She's at it again...and an update

Let's just say that 2013 is starting off with a bang for Madeline.  This little girl of ours is bound and determined to do it all.  Last month, she learned to ride a bike without training wheels.  Last week, she declared to me that she learned how to hula hoop.  And to my surprise, when I walked outside to said hula hoop, she was hula hooping!  You may recall the photos I took of the dumplings hula hooping at the Winter Carnival.  Caleb was hula hooping then; Madeline was faking it. lol.  Now, she no longer has to fake it.  

And if learning to hula hoop wasn't enough, she has learned to tie shoes!  As with Caleb, I had Madeline tie my shoe when learning because adult laces are longer and, therefore, easier to work with.  She's had the first part down for a while, and she has watched me tying my shoe one-handed.  (I figured I'd better learn how to do it myself one-handed if I was supposed to show her how to do it one-handed.)  Well, she found her own way of doing it!

This was her very first time tying it by herself.  I wasn't even sure she was going to do it because she did it completely different than what I had just shown her. But she did it!  After she ran off to play, I watched the video several more times so I could see exactly what she did.  Then I figured out a way to tweak her version to make it easier.  Instead of holding the loop in her left arm, she now just pins the loop down with her left arm so she can take the other lace around.  Also, she generally uses her left arm to help make the criss cross and pull the laces tight.  She was just being a bit silly using her toes because she knows she can't tie both shoes that way.  Stubborn and silly.  That's Madeline!

Oh, and one more thing....she's reading!  She's still working through Webster's syllabary and using the Writing Road to Reading phonogram cards to learn all the multi letter phonograms.  But  we've now added the McGuffey Primer and the Abeka K readers to the line up. She's something else, I tell ya!

Well, the reasons I have been MIA from bloggy land lately are many.  We are in the process of updating our home study for Havi, which has required me to collect a long list of documents (like practically all of the documents we needed for the original homestudy, with some of them needing to be updated.)  We finally sent that off to our agency this week and hope to get this update completed before our LOA arrives.  Our hope is to submit our Supplement 3 along with our I-800.  And we're hoping and praying that our Supplement 3 will be ready and waiting for our LOA to arrive and NOT the other way around.  I'm dreading the idea that this update might delay this part of the process for us, and that might mean bringing Havi home in July rather than June.  I soooo want to go in June.  *sigh*

And speaking of the little peanut, I have been busy sewing for her.  Prior to bringing Madeline home from China, I had the privilege of my niece Leah trying on new garments because she was/is just 5 months older than Madeline.  Well, my nephew Josh is also 5 months older than Havi, and I've already hit him up with a cute little romper.  My sister and brother-in-law are being such good sports and helping this mama out. lol. But unlike with Leah, I will NOT be photographing Josh wearing Havi's clothes!  I will, however, have to take some photos of the garments so I can share them here on the blog.

We are also preparing for a few special visitors who will be heading down here next week from Connecticut to help Madeline with an early birthday celebration.  We're looking forward to seeing Aunt Shell and Lydia!!!!  And we apologize in advance that the weather won't be bringing its A game.  But hopefully it will still be warmer than the winter you've had to endure this season.

I also haven't had much time lately to take any photos with my big girl camera.  So I just might have to whip up an iPhone photo bomb or post some older recents shots I've stumbled across.  I'll see what I can get around to...if I can pry my fingers away from my sewing machine.

Have a great weekend, everyone!