Who needs a dog when you have a little sister like Gracie that gets the newspaper for you every single morning? Yep, that is right. My little sister is like a Golden Retriever, a Dalmatian, a Greyhound or whatever dog that might retrieve morning newspapers for you.

You might recall a recent post I wrote called Little Helper that talks about Gracie’s ways of helping my mom, my dad, and me around the house. Well, this is one of her helpful ways that I had to elaborate on because it is just one of the cute, funny, and adorable things... more

My little sister Gracie does not like ice cream. What is up with that? I thought every child on this green planet loves ice cream. Well, not her. I think she would enjoy a jalapeno whole before she would take one bite of ice cream.

Last week Gracie had a sinus infection and her doctor prescribed her some medicine. Well as you can imagine she would not take her medicine because it smelled something awful. I am sure it probably tasted just as bad as it smelled. My mom decided that only way Gracie would take her medicine... more

I really wonder at times what my little sister Gracie is doing while I am slaving away at this wonderful educational establishment. Many times I ask myself these questions and wonder if she is jumping up and down on her big sisters bed or messing up the covers to make it look like I have not made it up that morning. Is she messing with my jewelry and getting it in one big tangled mess? Or maybe she is eating goldfish in my bed and leaving evidence in the sheets for me to find tonight at 10:00 p.m. as I am crawling in dead tired ready to go to bed. Maybe she... more

Gracie is such a little helper. She helps me when I unload the dishwasher by attempting to put the silverware into the drawer and into the little silverware dividers. When I do the laundry she tries to help me separate the clothes from darks, lights, and reds. Sometimes she will put a red in with the dark clothes or a light with a red. She likes to help me put the clothes in the washer but she is to short to reach the door because it opens from the top. I will hand her the clothes and then lift her up to dump the clothes... more

I believe my little sister Gracie is either a monkey or a future American Olympic gold medallist. The little daredevil loves to climb. She is fearless when it comes to heights. From the time she learned to walk she would find a way to climb on top of things.

It was not long after she learned how to walk she learned to open the dishwasher door and then crawl on top of it to reach for drinks and food that were on the cabinet. When we are not looking we have found her standing on top of the kitchen cabinet before. She wiggled... more

It’s funny the words toddlers use to try to communicate. For example, when my sister wants a drink she says, “mu-mu.” Sometimes when she is trying to say the right word she ends up saying things like “nummy” for yummy, “baw” for ball, “Bah” for our cat, Buster, “wa-er” for water, “bir” for bird and “doddie” for doggie. Sometimes Gracie will say the sounds of the objects instead of the word of the objects like “choo-choo” instead of train and “meow” for cat.

At times I think to myself that it will take forever for her to... more

Friday night I spent the night at my friend Kaitlynn’s house celebrating her fourteenth birthday. Six other of Kaitlynn’s closest friends also spent the night. We had a wonderful time of shopping, eating Chinese food and enjoying delicious treats at one of my favorite places, Starbucks. YUM!!! The evening was also spent laughing and watching movies and of course, staying up until all hours of the night. (Poor Kaitlynn’s parents.)

The time was quickly passing by and I realized it was getting late so I wanted to call my home... more

Thing One and Thing Two hit the road and it was a sight to behold.

Trick or Treating got off to a late start for the dynamic duo but that did not stop us. We were on a mission…a candy-seeking mission.

Mom strapped Thing Two in her stroller otherwise known as the “Thing Mobile” and Thing One waited patiently holding the candy holding contraption otherwise known to humans as a canvas bag.

We were off ready to conquer “Candy Land.” The night air was rather comfortable for our mission. We approached our... more

Some of you may have heard of the music artist, Mark Shultz. Those of you that have heard of him may not know that he is an adoptee.

He sang at a Christian benefit for adoption and a lady stopped to talk to him and was telling him how special adoption was and how special the birth moms are. She asked him if he had ever met his birth mom and he said no. She inquired why he had not and Mark’s reply was, “Well, I figured she gave me away and we wouldn’t have much to say”. She shared with him that his birth mom was very special and that she had three options she could have chosen from when she was pregnant with him. The first option was that she could of decided to have had an abortion... more

Languages are so confusing. I have a hard enough time pronouncing English correctly as it is.

After my parents and I finished the paperwork to complete our dossier my mom and I thought it would be great to learn some Chinese. My mother and I went downtown to our local library and checked out cassettes of common words and phrases in the Chinese language so that we could speak to Gracie in her native tongue. We popped the cassette into the cassette player in my mom’s car and AHHHHHHHH! It was too much, but at the same time... more