Family Day Celebration

We met our friends

from Murfreesboro in

Chattanooga this weekend

to celebrate Lauren's

gotcha day weekend.

Lauren and Ryan had a blast

with each other at the

Aquarium and it was great

spending time with Darrin

and Vicki also. The Dudley Family
Lauren and Ryan
Lauren posing
I love these Seadragons
Vicki and Ryan " playing with Nemo"

Family Day Anniversary

2 years ago we recieved

a wonderful blessing

from China. She is the joy

of our lives and we couldn't

imagine life without her.

Tomorrow we are taking

Lauren to Chattanooga, TN

to the aquarium to celebrate

family day so more pictures

to follow after our adventure. Lauren 2005
2006
2007

More Pictures of a birthday celebration

Five generations
Playing a game

A Birthday Celebration

We headed to North Florida

this weekend for my

great-grandmothers

91st birthday party.

Lauren and her great grandmother Josephine
My uncle Marvin and lauren
Lauren with her Great-Great Grandmother Liddie
4 wheelers, It's a southern thing :)
Family Reunited

So Big

Lauren is getting so big or at least it seems that way, she is really doing well with manners now
such as please, thank you, your welcome and bless you if you sneeze. She is also very loving and cuddly and loves to sit and be held and read to which is neat. she is getting to be really funny also and will carry on a conversation with us now and that makes us laugh considering a few months ago she wasn't talking at all. She will repeat anything she hears, I took her Christmas shopping with me on Friday and she came home and told daddy everything we bought and who it was for :) Thank goodness none of it was his. She still refuses to go to the potty though and will not wear big girl panties at all, even Dora ones. Not sure what the issue is with that but apparently she is not ready.

Trunk or Treat

We took Lauren to something called

trunk or treat, it was fun.

people decorate the trunks

of their cars and hand candy

out of them, Santa was even there. This is my favorite picture of Lauren
Santa at trunk or treat ? Lauren still doesn't like him :)
whoo hoo, candy..... and santa is far far away

I Love A Parade !!!

Lauren's preschool

parade was today for

halloween, all the kids

looked so cute and she had a great

time. She is a butterfly

this year, she picked it out

all by herself. :) It was cold

so she had to wear a sweater

and of course the yellow shoes.

Ms. Rachel trying to "gather" her kids
My Butterfly walking in the parade

Change is in the air

Well, here we are again. on the verge of a change. we have decided to switch programs and adopt from China once again. Steve was not fully into Vietnam and was going to do it to make me happy which is commendable but not the right thing to do. So once again, China here we come ( eventually ). That's ok, I still have shopping to do in China anyway that I didn't get to the first time. HA. :) Lauren still says she wants a brother but maybe a sister will work too.

Here she is with the Auburn cheerleaders from saturday's game of Auburn/ Ol miss. Which was a blast but so cold, we actually had to buy a blanket there to try and stay somewhat warm. :)

Have you ever ?

Have you ever thought " If I hear the word NO one more time my head is going to explode"
Have you ever wondered " Why don't you just take a nap already"
Have you ever found a piece of food in a ride on toy and thought " I wonder what that used to be"

If you answered yes to any of these you have officially been in toddlerhood, of course the whining and the no's are much more emphatic and have alot more volume to them.

God bless all moms because they have the endurance and patience of non mortals :)

Of course it's worth it all but there are days I wish I could just go back to bed and start over again. Oh, and to top it off the dishwasher and the microwave both broke this week and they both need to be replaced now. When it rains it pours. :)

A Cute Hobo

Lauren and I went to a
hobo party at a church
members house, she had a
great time eating cupcakes
and painting pumpkins.

In her "hobo" overalls
mmmmm chocolate good

the finished pumpkins, lauren's is the all black one, surprised ?

An Accidental New Look

My blog has a new look but it was purely by accident and by me messing around and doing serious damage to the template. Basically, I was trying to add something to the code in the template and deleted some symbols accidentally, well according to blogger help my only solution was to redo the whole blog. so after having a small meltdown and contemplating a big glass of wine the blog is now back to normal with a new look. :)

A word to the wise, don't play in the template, it's not forgiving. HA

A Small Update on our Vietnam Adoption

Here's a few pictures of our

"catalog" as Steve calls it. This

is the guidebook for our Vietnam adoption and to

say this thing is big is an

understatement. We met with the

social worker agency today and

are working on getting our

home study in the works. Because

our agency does not have social workers

in Georgia, we have to hire someone

to do the home study. Once

our homestudy is complete

we are put on the list to be matched

with our child which is approximately

18 months. Then we submit a

Dossier and then we travel. This

adoption has me sideways and

upside down because it is so

different then China was.

We also want to thank everyone who has

donated through paypal and those who are praying for us, we

are truly grateful for your support. Our Vietnam Guidebook ( Catalog)
This thing is thick :)

Please Help if You Can

As you know we are adopting from Vietnam and are asking each person who visits our blog to donate $1.00 to our adoption if you can and if you feel lead to do so. On the side of our blog is a donate button through paypal and all you do is click it and donate $1.00 to our adoption. We appreciate all the support from our blogger community of friends and could really use your help with this fundraising. If you do not have a paypal account and would still like to donate a dollar then please email me at stdudley@bellsouth.net and I'll give you an address to send your donation to. Again, we appreciate any donation help at all. If you feel like you cannot give money then would you please pray for us and our family as we continue to fundraise for Baby Dudley. I will post any news on the adoption here also so you know what is happening with your donation.

Thank you so much.

Steve's Birthday & Bowling

Daddy turned 39 today

so we celebrated with some

dinner, cake and gifts. Then we

also had a church event at

a bowling alley to go to today.

Lauren enjoyed the bowling but she really loved

blowing out the candles on Steve's

cake, we had to do it 3 times :) Take 1
Take 2
Daddy got tickets to the Auburn/Ole Miss game as a gift
Ok, which one is mine ?
She would kick the ball instead of rolling it :)

Pumpkin Painting

Lauren did her annual

pumpkin painting this morning.

She had a great time and

was covered in paint by the time

she was done. Thank goodness

it's washable and so is she :) Starting to paint

She's concentrating so hard
The finished masterpiece.

Our Weekend Adventures

We took Lauren to a corn maze on Saturday

and she picked a pumpkin

while we were there. Steve

was off today for Columbus Day

so we went to the Yellow

River Game Ranch which

was very cool, it was basically

a free roam petting zoo

and the animals were so

friendly, they would just walk right up and

let you feed them. Lauren

fed deer, peacocks, pigs,

rabbits, chipmunks, squirrels

and even black bears, the bears

were in a pen and you just threw

food to them but it was a

neat place.
Her Pumpkin choices
Feeding a deer and apple slice
The Deer just gathered around us
She is telling the rabbit to sit in this picture :)

Approved !!!!

Just wanted to share that

we just got news from our agency that

we are approved to adopt from Vietnam.

We changed agencies and had

to wait to announce it but

Vietnam here we come.

( eventually) :). I never

in a million years would have

believed after my hysterectomy

that I would become a mother and

now I will be a mom to 2

beautiful blessings. One from

China and one from Vietnam.

Lauren showing off her new shirt.

1st Day of Preschool

Today was Lauren's first day

of preschool, she goes 2 days

a week for half a day. She had

so much fun there, she was shy and

stand offish at first but they

called me and said after a while

she jumped right in with the other kids.

Pink Toes and Pingers

For some reason Daddy

is the chosen nail painter for

Lauren. She will get the polish

and go and tell daddy

"pink toes and pingers"

and of course he always

obliges her. Even if it's

the Auburn/Florida game.

Now that's Love :) Blowing her nails dry

Sitting very still

Lauren and Daddy Reading