My Little Horn Blower~

First off, sorry Mia looks like a little trash baby but it was right before bath time last night and I had already stripped off her clothes so sorry for looking like a raggy baby.

Ethan is in band playing trumpet and he was practicing last night and he set his trumpet on the kitchen table. Mia climbed up on the table and below is how I found her.

She was totally blowing in the trumpet and it was making a little sound-- good job Mia!!

When she realized we were watching her she flashed a big smile and loved all the attention.

Ethan helping her blow.

Being cute. Who knows-- maybe Mia will take after her mom and brother and play the trumpet!!

WARNING-- THE NEXT COUPLE PICTURES ARE NOT THAT ATTRACTIVE BUT TOTALLY FUNNY AND CUTE- PROCEED WITH CAUTION AND DON'T FLAME ME!!!

Mia is all about "mommy I pooped" but she really didn't. Last night after the trumpet playing she said she needed to go poop so I stripped her down to nothing- since she was taking a bath next anyway- and set her on the toilet.

Just to let you all know-- there are no pictures of areas to be concerned so don't freak on these pictures. Mia sat there and looked intently like she wanted something to happen then she started with the toilet paper and she loved that. She thought she was so grown up.

Getting ready to be a big girl and wipe!

And here she goes.

She was so proud of herself but really did nothing more than sit there and then put toilet paper in the toilet-- oh ya and she flushed.

A little early to be potty training but hay if she wants to sit there then it is good by me.

The boys meanwhile were playing outside with their swords from Medieval Times. They were having a blast.

Kevin practicing his skateboarding moves.

On Guard!!!

They were using anything as weapons-- very creative with what they found-- I think Owen has a tree stake.

Daddy getting into the action. A busy but fun night!!

My Blogging Friend Kaycee!!!!

There are so many of you out in bloggerland that I have come to admire, respect and in many ways love. I will be telling Kevin or someone about one of you and something going on in your family and i speak as though I know you- like you are my neighbor-- and then Kevin will say "Isn't that one of your blogger friend" and I laugh and say yes. So many of you are so real to me and I think about you ofter. I worry for you, I pray for you and I rejoice with you. Bloggerland is an amazing place and I feel so blessed I have a support group out there that genuinely loves and cares for my family.

It is not often that I get to actually meet one of my blogger friends as so many of you are all across the country (and other countries for that matter) BUT, this weekend I got to see my good blogger friend Kaycee from LIFE IN THE MIDDLE OF AN ADOPTION. I met Kaycee about 16 months ago at a restaurant in our area. She use to live in our area and actually went to elementary school with my best friends Laila and laura. Laila, Cassie and I were sitting at Lucille's and we had just been home from China for about 1 month. Kaycee asked about Mia and we spoke for a while and she had remembered my story about being skipped. Anyway, we hit it off and then she recognized my friend Laila and realized she knew them as well. Anyway, we have been following each others journeys ever since. Kaycee has friends here in Southern California so she came and hung out this weekend and we met up for lunch. It was so amazing to see Kaycee and I ended up realizing I knew her friend from my sons old school. Anyway, very small world and we had a blast talking over lunch.

It was wonderful to see Kaycee and I just loved spending time with her and wish we had more time to hang out. I'm sure we will more in the future!!!

Kaycee and Miss Mia!!

Mia went to Kaycee very well and even sat in her lap for a bit at lunch.

The only picture Mia actually smiled in.

Kaycee is a wonderful person and I was so happy to get to hang out with her for a while.

Kaycee's friend Sarah was so sweet and this is one of her three children Lily. Lily is 4 and has a twin brother.

Mia loved playing with Lily-- they just ran around the whole time!

OK other blogger friends. If you come to southern California-- please let me know. I totally would love to meet you!!

More Clips!!!

Mia and I went to Ross yesterday just to look around. I have been having to watch the spending money thing really close over the past few months and I have had very little to spend on clothes for myself or Mia-- Hawaii broke us-- but was worth it! I have actually been really good and have bought Mia next to nothing-- with the exception of bow because they are cheap!! Anyway, yesterday I found this adorable double breasted Roxy (that's the brand-- real popular girls brand) plaid corduroy pea coat. It is just adorable but it is a size 12 months. It fits Mia fine but I can tell it is going to be a little small within a few months. So, I have it on hold and am trying to decide weather or not to spend the whopping $9.99 on it. What do you think and Kim, your vote doesn't count since her clothes will eventually go to you-- haha!!!

Here it is with Mia's funny half "cheese" smile!

A better picture!

My little shopper who was getting very tired. Notice the butterfly clip in her hair-- that leads me to the next part of my post....

MORE CLIPS!!!!!

I just love my clip provider Heather at http://www.love2sparkle.com/. She is amazing and sooooo many people who follow my blog have contacted me asking for her info and have subsequently bought clips from her. Her prices are soooo reasonable and the quality is really great!! Anyway, I was on a few other clip sites and found some I really liked but Heather didn't have them on her site so I emailed her pictures of the clips I loved from the other sites and asked her if she could make them. Well, sure enough she did and for about 1/4 of the price they were on the other sites.

The butterfly ones are just beautiful. They are totally covered in sequins and they vary in color to appear to shimmer. I love these and they are bigger (2 and 1/4 inches) than all the other clips I have so they look really cute on her growing head:)

The middle ones are made of felt and have a pearl in the middle. They are very cute. The other ones are just cute and whimsical so I had to get them.

So my next issue is that I have completely run out of room for her bows. Literally I could not find the clips I wanted because they were so jammed on the holders. So, I got creative yesterday-- a rare event-- and decided to make some clip holders.

I went to target and found the little wall thing that has room for 8 clip holders to hang from from them. I mounted it right inside her door in her room. Then I bought some cute ribbon, fringe and key rings (you know like your keys latch onto). I used my hot glue gun and strung the ribbon through the keyring and glued the ribbon to the key ring (lapped over). Then I measured out the length and glued the beaded fringe to the bottom to add weight so the ribbon will lay flat when there are not a lot of bows on it. That is it. I made 4 of the stripe ribbon ones and 4 of the other ribbon ones so that I had extras.

I totally organize the bows by the types and sizes.

Here are two of the unused ribbons. I have 4 total left over-- so that is a ton of bows I still can fill up :)

Here is where I use to put the bows and it was horribly crowded. I put a few old bow hangers on the pegs just for the heck of it but I want to do something different with those pegs-- hang something different but I have not figured out what yet.

And yes, that is Mia's Halloween costume. We are doing handed down costumes this year. Ava wore this last year so Mia gets to wear it this year-- yaaa--that's money saved!!!

Fish, Baby and Wub!!!!!

First off guess who randomly without any prompting said "I WUB YOU" tonight---- yes--- it was Miss Mia!!!! Totally random, totally on her own. I was putting her to bed tonight and I always say I love you when putting her down. I put her in her crib and immediately she pulled her blanket up to her chin and through her paci she said "I wub you mom". My heart just melted and I said "what did you say sweetie" and she said it again and I said it back to her and she said it to me and then Kevin heard and he came in and she said it to him and then Owen heard and he came in and she said it to him and then repeated it over and over!! It was so cute because it came out so unprompted but then when she saw our reaction she said it over and over again. It just was so sweet!!! Mia literally has had a verbal explosion over the last 2 weeks. She says 3 to 4 word sentences on a regular basis. Her speech is getting much more clear and I would say I understand 70% of what she says. She also repeats literally everything we say. She will repeat 3 word sentences easily. My little girl is a little talker-- I mean a big time talker!! I just love hearing her speak-- it is so cute!!!

Last week the kids and I popped into Bass Pro Shop and Mia loved looking at the fish.

Here is her Cheese face once again.

Ethan being the good big brother watching the fish!

Very cool fish!!

At lunch the other day Mia insisted on taking baby and the stroller. She is just obsessed with that little thing-- hint-- great buy and if you have a little girl-- go to Costco and buy the stroller/baby/cradle/everything COMBO PACK!!! It is just awesome!!

She is a good mommy who takes good care of her baby!

Oh by the way-- notice Mia's new shoes? They are the pediped Annie Potpourri flex line.

They are adorable in person and they are so comfy on. She loves them. I also bought the Giselle flex and they are just perfect.

I bought them a bit big but they still work fine now and she will grow into them as the fall/ winter goes on. By the way, if you need shoes that go with everything get the Giselle's-- they are perfect and go with everything. I had them in the smaller looking ones last year and Mia wore them to death-- I was so happy the flex line carries the Giselle and that Mia fits into the flex shoes-- check them out here.

Just Hanging Out!!

First off please take a look at my friend Debbie's blog as she received her beautiful daughter Lily today (actually last night). She is beautiful and is doing wonderful!!! Check out her blog and give her words of encouragement. You can check out her blog here.


We have not been up to much. Kevin finally got back in town on Saturday but then had to go to a DUI checkpoint on Saturday night and then on Sunday he had to work. His DUI checkpoint on Sunday night was cancelled so we had Kevin's parents over for dinner. After dinner we watched the kids swim-- it was a really nice evening.

The boys decided to eat their pie on top of the fireplace. Mary (Kevin's mom made the pie-- yumm!!!!)

My handsome little men!!

Don and Mary eating their pie by the pool. Kevin's mom Mary watches Mia one day a week. She is a retired teacher (just last year) and is teaching Mia soooooo many wonderful things. Mia is learning her colors and has many of them and she does all sorts of "good grandma" things.

Owen and Mia in the spa. Mia loves to swim and goes in on her own. She is totally fearless which scares me a but but we keep our eagle eye on her.

This morning Mia was being just as cute as can be with her baby doll. She had her purse and sunglasses and all sorts of "baby" things to take care of her baby in the stroller. It is too cute!!!

Here is Mia's "cheese" face again.

Mia strolling her baby around.

Mia looking through her baby goods.

Lily --Mommy and Daddy are comming!!!!

Hi everyone,

Lily Hope Erickson

I posted a few months back that our friend that lives in our city, goes to our church and used our agency got her referral for her beautiful daughter Lily Hope!! Turns out Lily is 11 months younger than Mia and is in the Hunan province and only about 1 hour from the area Mia is from. I am just so excited for this dear family and cant wait to see Lily in their arms in only mere hours. You can follow their journey here. They will be getting Lily in the middle of the night tonight-- Sunday night so when you wake up Monday morning hopefully there will be pictures.

By the way, in regards to the last post, I have been in contact (via email) with our guide from Changsha Hunan (actually the guide that will be The Erickson's guide) and she is going to see what we can figure out. It may work that we contact a local shop owner and send the poster to that person. Then, they post the poster October 28 (the day before her birthday-- I think it was actually her birthday but she was abandoned on October 29 and they deemed that day her birthday), take a picture of it to email me so I know they posted it and then I will pay the shop owner-- or pay them whenever. That is what I would like to do in my perfect world but who knows. Susan (my guide in Hunan) will help me put the pieces together. Yueyang County is 2 hours north of Changsha, where Susan lives, but she can at least make the phone calls. We will see but I just really feel compelled to do this. I will keep you updated.

Thinking about doing this...

Hi guys, I am thinking about doing this. Tell me what you think or if you have any ideas. This letter is to our guide in Changsha, Hunan. The pictures at the end are the ones I sent her to jog her memory. Tell me what you think.

Hi Susan,

I am attaching a few pictures of us while in China to remind you of who we are. This is Christy Bock. We were in Changsha adopting our daughter Ba Jun Fei (Mia) in May 2007. Mia was from Yueyang County and you were our guide. We were not with a travel group but we were by ourselves. Mia was only 6 months old on Gotcha day and remember we were locked out of the civil affair office and we ended up having Gotcha by ourselves. Also, you may remember my husband was on crutches because he had broken his hip months before. I hope that jogs your memory.

Anyway, we have been home for 17 months and Mia is just doing amazing. She will be 2 in October. I wanted to ask you about the possibility of getting a poster of Mia then and now to her finding place at the civil affairs office in Yueyang county. I am not trying to find birth parents or anything like that. All I want to do is to display a poster in Mia's finding place that shows pictures of her finding ad and date of abandonment etc and then show pictures of her now showing how her life is here in the US. I mostly want to do this to give her birth mom peace knowing her daughter has a wonderful life. I don't want anything from her or them. My hope is that someone who knows who her mom was or ever the foster mom, will see the pictures and let her know so she can see them herself. That is it. I just want to know that I did everything i could to let her birth mom know Mia is OK-- I'm sure she wonders and I think there is a likelihood that she will go to her abandonment place on the anniversary. Maybe not but it is worth a try. If she sees the poster and is able to put two and two together then maybe she will realize the baby in the pictures is Mia and that by giving her up she gave her so much. It is really just to give birth mom peace-- nothing more.

So, my question is how can I get that poster over there and who can I get to post it at the civil affairs office? Maybe a local shop owner I can pay? What do you think?I would so appreciate your help with this Susan! Let me know what you think.

Thanks so much,

Christy Bock

Here are the pictures we sent Susan.

She was just sooooo tiny!!!

She would laugh so hard and get this little silly grin on her face-- too funny!!!

Yes, we are driving in a car and Mia is just sitting on Kevin's lap. If you have yet to travel to China, there are no car seats and kids just sit wherever-- reminds me of when we were kids.

So, what do you guys think-- got any suggestions????

The Los Angeles County Fair!!!

This past weekend we went to the LA County fair with Chuck, Susan and kids. We had a great time and it has now been a tradition for about 3 or 4 years that we all go to the fair together so we were happy to continue the tradition this year.

Mia liked the animals and was not scared at first but then some pesky goat started eating her clothes and she got a bit freaked out. She was still curious, she just stayed very close to me.

Mia loved loved loved the piggies. She kept saying "piggie come here" and was very upset the piggie wouldn't come here!!!

We also saw the most beautiful horses. They were like majestic and I was just taken with them. Mia also loved the "hoseeeee."

The light in this picture is horrible but I think it is cute of Mia. Notice that she does not have an earring in her right ear. She lost it again. She doesn't really mess with them but for some reason we have lost the right ear twice. I finally went and got her some screw back earrings and they seem to be fine and they are staying in real well.

Every year the fair has snow in one of the buildings (remember-- here in LA we don't get any snow except for in the mountains so the pitiful ice snow in the one building is something the kids look forward to every year) and the kids love to play in it. Mia totally loved playing in it this year!!

And now the compare and contrast I told you I would do.

The Fair 2007-- Mia was 10 months (almost 11 months) old at the time.

I cant believe how little she looks and I cant believe how young Owen looks. Wow have they both changed in a year.

The Fair 2008-- Mia is 22 months

We had a great time and look forward to next year. I think I am going to go back on my own just to go in the shopping buildings. We didn't have enough time to shop so I think I will go back next week on my own.

I was just on my friends blog and I saw this amazing picture of her daughter and her orphanage mate while they were in China over a year ago. I think it is the most adorable picture I have ever seen and I just had to post it. Gracie is the one on the left (if you are looking at the picture) and she is one of the little girls we often go to Disneyland with.