Cora's Big Day

I know this day was a long time ago, but since I've been giving you glimpses through the adoption process, I thought I'd share the last part of how Cora became ours.

At the end of August, soon after Cora turned 6 months (a day after to be exact), we arrived at the local court to legalize our adoption.  Basically, during the 180 days following Cora's placement with us, we had to complete 5 visits with our adoption agency, including one home study.  Although Cora's birthparents relinquished their parental rights 48 hours after Cora's birth, we had to wait 6 months before we were legally named Cora's parents and thus issued a new birth certificate with our names on it.

So, we woke up bright and early and got to the courthouse early.  This was an appointment we didn't want to be late for.  Good thing, because we were the first ones to go!

Cora, excited for this great day!

In a proceeding that lasted a total of 5 minutes,  we were sworn in, asked a few questions, and legally pronounced Cora's parents.  The judge even gave Cora a little teddy bear and let us take a picture with him.

The hearing was so quick that a friend we invited, who got stuck in a little traffic, just managed to catch the end of the hearing.  But, she was gracious enough to take a few pictures for us.  Thanks Auntie Jeanie!

We're legally the Sliks!

My happy girl!

Truly, a wonderfully meaningful and joyful day for our family!  I am just amazed at what God has done in bringing our family together.  7 years ago, when Slik and I got married, I would have never dreamed that we would end up adopting a child.  Now, I can't dream of our life without our precious daughter!

While I've been away...

(from blogging that is) lots has happened and Cora has grown like crazy.  I didn't mean to take a break from blogging, but sometimes life just gets in the way and I didn't really want to spend my 45 minute nap breaks editing/uploading/blogging my pics.  So, sorry for the hiatus, I'm going to attempt to catch up with a photo dump of our life in the past 3 months.

So, while I was away lazy...

   
Cora learned to sit

and stand up in her exersaucer

She deepened her friendship with her favorite doggie, Uncle Beau

She tried her first solids - avocados.  This was her reaction.

Cora learned to read.  (Not really!)

There were lots of naps

We visited friends

  

We visited family

Cora learned to ride a scooter


She went to the beach for the first time

(Immediately after Slik snapped this pic, a huge wave drenched me up to my knees.  It was COLD)

  

We've really just been enjoying time together and with friends and family these past few months.  As Cora has become more interactive and active, I'm understanding how life as a mom can be so busy even if at the end of the day, all you've done is "played" with your child.  I wouldn't trade these moments for anything though - I just love how Cora has been changing before my eyes.

Right now, we're visiting my family in NJ, so hopefully I can carve out some time to catch everyone up on our lives and some big changes coming ahead :)  So, that's it for now!

Before I sign off, here's a bonus picture of my blue-eyed loves

Jslik's 30!

It's been exciting around here lately as we've been busy celebrating birthday week in the Slik household.  I am only 11 days older than Aslik so we usually combine our birthdays together and have a fancy dinner out. But this year was the big 3-0 for the both of us, so we went all out.

If you remember, Andy got me a serger for my birthday....or more like Andy allowed me to buy myself a serger.  I found a slightly used one on Craigslist for a steal so Andy surprised me on my birthday with a new pair of earrings.  My first pair of diamond earrings - a classic that every wife should have :-)

Then we had a fancy dinner at Uchi in Houston.  Uchi was named to Bon Appetit's top 100 restaurants of 2012.  It was fantastic!

Note - I was actually born on 8/29, but, according to my mother, the nurse wrote the day down wrong, and thus my legal birthday is 8/28.  I take the best of both worlds and have turned my birthday into a two-day celebration!

Here are some of the tasty things we ate.  I can't remember the names for all of them....we ordered so many dishes!

My favorite - smoked yellowtail with pears and yucca crisps

Andy digging into one of the dishes

This was like a hotstone rice - so yummy!

The 30-year-old me :-)

After a great night out, I continued my birthday celebration the next day.  I drove up north to visit some friends in my old neighborhood.  I had a fantastic fruit tart from Central Market and a couple of my favorite kiddos helped me celebrate.

I asked for a nice picture - this was the only one I got.

All the other pictures were like this one.

It was a fantastic birthday, and now I've officially entered a new decade!

Goodbye Mani, Goodbye Cockroach

Yesterday, I decided to paint my nails so I could look extra pretty for our date to see the Houston Symphony in the special dollar concert (yes, it only cost me $1 a ticket, but I had to pay a $5 service fee and $7 to park - go figure).  I rarely paint my finger nails because inevitably, 30 minutes after I'm done, I ruin it.  I don't know how some women can keep their manicures looking pristine past 1 hour...any tips? Maybe they just sit around home eating bon bons and watching Keeping up with the Kardashians (which I admit I occasionally watch as a guilty pleasure....I think their life is ridiculous, but it's inexplicably engrossing).  At least when I watch, I'm probably sewing.  Sewing = death for manicures.  I guess I just like to get my hands dirty...I don't know why I even bother with manicures.

Anyway, today I busted out my sewing machine after a 3 MONTH hiatus and traded my manicure in for sewing.  Making stuff is way more awesome!  It feels so nice to be in front of a sewing machine again, although my neck tension problems are creeping back.  I need to work on remembering to maintain good posture while sewing and take breaks in between.

Here's a sneak peek at my new sewing area:

I forgot to take a pic after I actually brought out the sewing machine

My manicure isn't the only thing I've said goodbye to lately.  The other day, I lived through what I call "The Great Cockroach Standoff".  I was unpacking and organizing the bathroom linen closet when I spotted a gigantic cockroach in an open bag of toilet paper.  There were little black turds in there too so I suspect the cockroach had been there awhile....I'm hoping that it came from our temporary apartment since there was a roach problem back there (this is what I tell myself to overcome the gross thought that I'm living in a roach infested apartment).  Anyway, I tried to kill the roach in the bag, but it got out and then proceeded to crawl all over my stuff, up the wall, and onto the ceiling.  Now the ceilings here are about 9 ft high and the cockroach just parked itself up there.  In the process of trying to kill it, I pretty much pulled everything of the closet and created a gigantic mess.

My big mess

Now, how to kill this little bugger? I thought about using my swiffer to squash it against the ceiling, but what if I missed and the bug fell on me?  There wasn't really much room to get into the closet and the roach was too close to the door, making it impossible to see it unless you stuck your head in the closet and looked up (with your mouth closed of course).  It was getting close to dinner time, but I couldn't leave the room without the roach being dead.  So....I sent Andy a distress call, told him to get his butt home pronto and pick up some roach spray on the way (it helps that I literally live next door to Home Depot).  Then I pulled up a chair and began "The Great Cockroach Standoff".

About half an hour later, Andy came to the rescue.  He reached his hand into the closet, pointed the nozzle of the roach spray towards the ceiling, gave a blind spray, causing the roach to fall to the floor, and I creamed it with my swiffer.  Victory is mine! So:

Cockroach: 0
Sliks: 1

I took a pic of the dead roach on my phone, but I figured you probably would rather not see it.  Hopefully I'm on my way to living roach free....

The Other Side of the World

A few things that happen when you live on the other side of the world....

Last week, we celebrated a friend's birthday party with a surprise bowling party.  I got my friend a nice serving plate and dipping sauce bowl but couldn't find a box for it.  I scrounged around and found a nice bag (I do have to admit, it was from a restaurant, but it was really pretty and a good quality bag) and wrapped up the plates in some blank newsprint to protect it.  Admittedly, it looked a bit lame, but no worries, I added some pretty pink tissue paper and the present was presentable.  I left the present with one of my friends so that those who were going early to set up at the bowling alley could put it with the rest of the presents.  The surprise went successfully and my friend was very happy, but when I got to the bowling alley, I noticed that my present was not among the others.  Instead, it was tucked off to the side with the extra party supplies.  Then, I looked over at the bouquet of flowers that my friend got

hmmm that tissue paper looks very similar to my tissue paper...because it is my tissue paper!  Of course this left my present looking like a bunch of garbage

it appears that there is actually some garbage thrown in there!

Apparently my friends (who are Singaporean), didn't know my present was an actual present.  I asked them about it and they said the tissue paper was just lying on the top, not wrapping anything so they thought that it was just extra paper.  I guess it's not the custom in Singapore to stuff useless tissue paper in a gift bag to make it look pretty (I suppose they do have a point).  They felt pretty bad about it, but I thought it was ridiculously funny.  We all got a good laugh out of that one!

In other news, our water heater is out (again) and we're on day 4 of cold showers.  No matter how hot it is outside, a cold shower is still pretty darn cold.

On Saturday, Andy watched game 7 of the World Series via.....Skype.  Oh the marvels of modern technology.  We usually talk to my in-laws on Skype on our Saturday morning, their Friday night.  This weekend, that happened to be while they were watching Game 7 of the World Series.  Andy was dying to watch the Rangers, but none of our channels were showing the game.  So, my in-laws worked a little magic and set up their webcam right in front of the TV so we could watch via Skype.

Too bad the Rangers lost...I guess we'll be Skyping into Thanksgiving dinner next!