MAHALO 4D FOR THE SHOWER

Just a few days before we left for our trip to Georgia & Seattle, my co-workers from the Neuro ICU at Queen's Medical Center celebrated us bringing Lilah home with a wonderful party/shower. Our wonderful hosts were Aunty Andrea & Uncle Jon, who held the soiree at the top of their building in downtown Honolulu. Lilah is just crazy about these two and we thank them so much for all they have done for us since we got home from Vietnam. Andrea is ever the perfect party planner, complete with clever baby games, itunes with all songs related to "Baby" and an adorable clothesline holding pictures of our trip to Vietnam and first pictures at home. The menu was southern cooking and Jon made delicious ribs and everyone brought southern dishes. Mel made the best hush puppies ever. It was weird though to go to a party in Hawaii with no rice or noodles.
This is Lilah with her Aunty Juliet and her daughter Gabby. These two were part of the clean up crew from when we first arrived home. Gabby is adorable, sweet, and very smart (just like her Mom), we hope Lilah will grow up with many of Gabby's fine traits.
This is Aunty Vanh who is half Vietnamese and half Chinese. I always tell Vanh there's a chance Lilah could look like her when she's grown. Of course Lilah is Vietnamese, but she's from Northern Vietnam where the Chinese migrated in the 13th century, so you never know. You may have also noticed poor Lilah's breakouts on her face. She got 3 big zits the day of the party, i think she was just nervous about it all..... what to wear...... meeting all these new people....she's like her Mom, life gets stressful, and the breakouts start.
Lilah's favorite gift of the night was Elmo from Aunty Heather & Uncle Ryan and their two girls Sarah and Jessie. Lilah loves this thing. He talks and she's supposed to help him get dressed. But I'm embarrassed to say just a few days ago I found this tag in his back you pull to end the demo and Elmo can really begin. So all this time we'd been hearing the same things over and over because it was on demo. I must say now Mommy finds the toy much less bothersome since he now says more than two things. And Sarah ( Heather & Ryan's oldest daughter) is so cute, she walks right up and talks to Lilah and says, "Baby Lilah would you like to play with me." She always calls her Baby Lilah and I love it.
This is Aunty Gina & Aunty KJ. Aunty KJ (in blue) was another of the musketeers that helped clean up when we first arrived home and she gave us a huge bag of yard sale goodies that were terrific.

Bill, Lilah, and I just wanted to say thank you to my work family for everything you have done for us. Your support and love has meant the world. You are one of the few people who were right there with us everyday of the adoption process and you know just how hard we worked for this little angel. You've loved us on our happy days and sad days and we just can't even begin to thank you enough. Love you all.

Happy Birthday Daddy ....... (July 10th)

I told you we'd been busy, so i'm trying to catch back up to where we left off. Bill is finishing up his MBA this summer and so his birthday, tuesday, was on the same day he had class. So that means he goes to work all day, then straight to class, and doesn't get home till after 10pm, .... not much of a birthday. So Lilah and I decided to have a spur of the moment Surprise birthday dinner for Bill on monday night when he didn't have class, the day before his birthday. We knew this would really surprise him.

So John & Andrea ( who are adopting domestically here in Hawaii) and Abel came over to help us celebrate with the birthday boy. Many of you know when we first got home, Lilah wanted to be held ALL the time. Just the amount of time it took for me to change clothes in the morning and make up the bed would make her cry, so you can imagine that dinner was impossible to get finished. The day of the party I had so much cooking to do and she was such an angel all day. She sat right in her bumbo (greatest baby invention ever) and helped me cook all afternoon, and was a trooper with grocery shopping and all the last minute running around. It was like she almost knew we had to get it done and she was such a great sport. By the way, she's doing so much better now with entertaining herself. The sitting up on her own has really helped a lot. Now I'm afraid she's growing up too fast. She can put herself in the crawling position, no movement of course, but soon enough she'll be running around and will not want all that snuggling anymore. So i'm enjoying every bit of snuggling I can for now. I whisper in her ear at night to please not grow up too fast. Think it will work?

When our friends came over that night for the birthday, the boys helped Bill assemble Lilah's new highchair. We laughed about how times have changed..... They used to come over for relaxing & socializing and now we've got 'em busy putting highchairs together instead of enjoying sports center. But everyone brought Lilah a gift along with her Daddy's gift, so she felt like it was her birthday too, so much so that she wore Daddy's crown instead of him!

Lilah Can Sit Up Now!!!

Lilah started sitting up last weekend. She now can sit up by herself from anywhere to 5 to 15 minutes without falling over. I put pillows all around her to cushion the fall when she does finally tip over. She's really enjoying sitting up and will sit next to me while I'm going through the mail, putting on makeup, etc. She does not want to hold everything that I've got. She makes this grunting whimpering type of noise when she wants what I have. It doesn't matter if I have a pen, paper, or machete, if I've got it she wants it.

She's now eating all kinds of baby food and I must brag and say she's doing quite well. She hated rice cereal, so we just skipped it and went on to fruits and veggies. She loves everything except green peas. She'll still eat the peas, she just makes a face when she does. She's also started using her sippy cup. Bill came home and said, "you've got the sippy cup out, isn't it a little soon?" She hasn't totally mastered it yet, but already she's making big improvements. She can now get some water out, but can't quite hold it high enough without a little help.

Lilah and I planned Bill a boys weekend in Vegas for his birthday. So he's off this weekend enjoying some friends he hasn't seen in a long time. We of course miss him, but are enjoying our girl time. We hope he comes home rich! But could he ever be richer than having the two of us?

I know we have been MIA from the blog for almost a month. Things just got crazy around here with finishing up the reconstruction, planning Bill's surprise birthday dinner, then Lilah and I headed to GA & Seattle for almost 2 weeks to let all the family meet my little pumpkin! Then we were back a day and my friend Leslie from nursing school came to visit with her family, so we've been busy bees. Hopefully things will slow down just a little now, but i'll never be able to blog as well as I did pre Lilah. Already I'm watching the clock knowing I better get to bed so i'll be ready when my little Sunshine wakes up.

More pictures of Lilah the Party Girl

The other day I told Dad for him and Mom not to wear themselves out running back and forth from San Juan to Seattle on our account while we're in town next week. Dad said, "don't worry, its for Lilah, not for you." And i must say that's certainly the truth, when people see me now, nobody says hello to me, its all hi and hello's to Lilah. But if I had to be shoved out of the spotlight at least its by someone with a cute big slobbery grin.

Here's Lilah and her new friend Kyle. They got along great and Kyle's mom even had a bumbo Lilah could use so she felt right at home.

Karen is our Biggest Blogger Fan

Yolanda our host is so fancy, she even had this little basket filled with baby bottles with little stickers on the bottle that read ALOHA BABY MOORE complete with the picture of Lilah at the orphanage with the two flowers behind her ears. She really thought of everything.


At the shower Yolanda also had a fun game called Who Knows Aloha Baby Moore Blog the best. It had a series of questions about our blog covering various things like how long is the bus ride to Lang Son, what was Bill doing on the way to the G&R ceremony, what does G&R stand for, what does Lilah call her grandmother, who is our pediatrician, does Lilah like cheese T or F, etc.





I was really surprised how many people knew so many of the answers, poor Bill was trying to help some people and couldn't remember a few of the answers himself.

But I'm happy to say KAREN was our biggest blogging fan!!! She told us while we were in VN the first thing she did everyday was check the blog, before she even fed her beloved dogs. Everyone laughed at how fun it was to actually see Lilah in person and not just on a computer anymore.

I know there are a few of you out there who could have done quite well yourself at the Aloha Baby Moore trivia questions and given Karen a run for her money.

Karen is a very special and talented lady. She made this adorable crab dress with matching hat and bloomers for Lilah along with a few extra hats. In Hawaii you can never have too many sun hats. And Lilah loved all the colors in the dress. Here's a few cute pictures of Lilah with her biggest blogger fan Karen, nice for these two to finally meet in person.

So to all of our blog fans, thank you so much for all your love and support, your comments and thoughts have supported us so much more than you could ever know. And thank you for being interested in what's going on in our little neck of the woods. Maybe all of you will start a blog too so I can keep up with you better. Leslie started one to chronicle their big move to Nashville, and its been so great to see Hailey so much more often, so come on, jump on the blogging train!

Mahalo Yolanda, Mo, & Brenda

These girls really thought of everything for the party! There was delicious food, fun games, and they even gave me a beautiful Haku to wear and feel like a princess for the day. Two Haku's in one year, I may start to think I really am Hawaiian royalty.

Miss Lilah enjoyed every minute of limelight. She had only had a 30 min nap in the car on the trip from Kailua to Kahala, and had not eaten in over 7 hours total, but she was still smiling and just enjoying all the attention. I know you're reading and thinking 7 hrs.. but she wouldn't eat when I tried to feed her... honest....., my little social butterfly was to busy socializing,.... (a lot like her Mama).

Aunty Maureeen who we like to call Aunty Mo, has this magic ability to soothe all the kids, I told her there were plenty of babies in Lang Son if she'd like one for her own. And Aunty Brenda actually had to work, but she finished rounding just in time as the party started. And the cutie you see in the photos with Maureen & Brenda is Kyle, he's almost 1 year old, and Lilah was certainly glad to make a new friend.

Here Kyle is with his Dad Dean, they hosted the party at their new beautiful home, unfortunately Yolanda, Kyle's Mom, is not in one single picture, because she's the busy bee taking all the photos. She's so good, she had a CD with pictures from the party to me by Monday, I'm slower than her with my thank you blog.

Mahalo Kapiolani Pediatric Outpatient Clinic For the SURPRISE Party!!

Last saturday Lilah and I had a big day planned. We woke up and got ready and headed out the door to her first birthday party in Kailua. Her new friend Jackson Cedar, whose Mommy works with me, was turning 1 year old. Then we were meeting some friends from Bill's office for a cookout.

Of course, if you know me I can really get into a party and loose track of time. I called Bill to check in and was quickly reprimanded for not being home yet to make it to the BBQ. For anyone who knows us, or Bill, know that we are quite often running late, especially Bill, and he's never one to be anal about things like getting to a party right when it starts. I couldn't figure out why he was so up in arms about being a few minutes late to the party. I had told Yolanda we'd be there around 1:00 and it was now 1:20, not bad for a weekend party in my opinion, especially when the birthday party had been on the other side of town.

As we entered the back gate to their patio area, I hear.... "Surprise"...... Bill's co-workers from the Kapiolani Women's & Children Hospital Pediatric Outpatient clinic had thrown us a surprise baby shower. It was such a wonderful and very kind surprise. I was just overwhelmed with their thoughtfulness. Thank you so much Yolanda, Dean, & Kyle for hosting the party, and thank you so much to Maureen & Brenda too for all your planning and hard work. Thank you to everyone for all your support and love through our entire adoption process. For those close to us, you know this was not always an easy road, so thank you for everything, we appreciate it more than you know. We are so blessed to have friends like you!