The Firstbrook Five

Sunday Snapshot - Looking Back

I've been organizing some older photos lately and have come across some of my very favorite photos ever. Several of them were of Emily when she was just a little one. They were just begging to be scrapped, to be displayed, to be enjoyed.

 

I mean, come on . . . how cute is she in the pig tails?!

 

I'm pretty sure this is in my top 3 favorite photos of Emily of all times! Just look at those eyes, those cheeks, those lips!!

 

Girlfriend has been about fashion since the very beginning. She's 10 now . . . and nothing's changed!

 

Well, ok . . . somethings have changed . . . she isn't obsessed with Dora anymore. But her obsession with accesorizing . . . still there.

 

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This post is part of Sunday Snapshot . . . a round up of bloggers sharing Snapshots of their family, their life, and their faith. To see more Snapshots, click here:

 

Check it Out - Meant to Be

Each of our girls, whether born from my flesh or born from my heart, are Meant to Be . . .

Meant to Be loved by us and by the Father.

Meant to Be taught of Christ's great saving love for them.

Meant to Be used mightily by God for their good and His glory!

These used to be so little . . .

When they were little like that I was so good about writing down the funny things they said . . . things like:

KELSEY: "Emily, your life is a musical!"   EMILY: "Yup!"

KATIE: (as Ron walks in the door from work) "Hi boy!"

EMILY: "Remember the day I first wore leggings with a skirt? That day changed mylife!"

KATIE:  (as we were talking about the Olympics in China) "I China and I happy!"

EMILY:  "You want to know who I want to meet in Heaven? God, of course. But also Johnny Cash."

OK, seriously, these girls are hilarious.

I think I need to get my quote book out and ready again. I've got to get better about writing down their funny little moments!

Sunday Snapshot - A Case Study

I always thought I'd be the mom to three rambunctious boys. Ha! That wasn't exactly how it worked out. And good thing, 'cause now that I'm older, and um, more mature . . . me and rambunctious boys, we don't work so well together.

Instead of those three wild and crazy boys, the Lord graciously gave me three incredible, albeit incredibly different, girls. My three girls are as different as night and day.

Behold . . . a case study on their differences and (very few) similarities:

Exhibit A: Kelsey

Communication Style: Non-verbal communication preferred. Uses body language to convey thoughts and emotions. (i.e. eye rolling, heavy walking, loud breathing). Most communication done via texting and/or Facebook.

Emotional Stability: Calm, quiet, contemplative. Rarely expresses self with tears. Tends to get frustrated with younger siblings, but has ability to walk away instead of insisting on being right. (Although in her mind she is always right, she just doesn't have the need to verbalize it every time.)

Clothing Preferences: Modern, stylish, picky. She likes what she likes, and won't wear what she doesn't. Chooses clothing carefully and frugally. Would prefer to wear several favorite outfits often rather than many different outfits that she doesn't love as much.

Exhibit B: Emily

Communication Style: Verbal. All.The.Time. She loves to talk. And did I mention . . . All.The.Time.

Emotional Stability: Expressive and explosive. Incredibly sensitive and loving towards others. Likely does not have a day without tears, whether tears of joy, frustration or anger. Often found arguing with younger sibling over who is right. No ability to walk away . . . Must.Be.Right . . . All.The.Time.

Clothing Preferences: Lots of them. Skirts, skorts, sparkles. Loves choices. Loves wild. Loves hats and accessories. The more clothes the better. The more bling the better.

Exhibit C: Katie Mei

Communication Style: Excellent blend of verbal and non-verbal communication, mostly expressed as wants, desires or demands. (i.e. I want to watch TV; Can I have a snack? Turn on the light!!)

Emotional Stability: Pretty much has passive aggressive down pat. Won't budge when her way is not chosen. Will resort to tears if it means a lessening of punishment, but usually is convinced she is right and cannot be convinced otherwise.

Clothing Preferences: Believes clothes are only a necessary evil in order to be allowed to go outside. Would live in pajama's 24/7 if allowed. Most common phrase heard sometime after 1pm at our house, "Do I have to get dressed now?!"

Exhibit D: The Girls

Clearly their differences are more distinct than their similarities . . . and I wouldn't have it any other way. There is not a boring day, or even a boring moment around here with these three . . . and I wouldn't have it any other way. I love them all, for all the ways they are unique and beautiful and funny and brilliant . . . and I wouldn't have it any other way!

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This post is part of Sunday Snapshot . . . a round up of bloggers sharing Snapshots of their family, their life, and their faith. To see more Snapshots, click here:

Sunday Snapshot - Crazy Katie

We're constantly learning new things about Katie Mei . . . when you have a 5 year old, life is like that, you know. In fact, just when we think we've got something about that little girl figured out, she likes to change on us. She's a tricky one.

When we went to the Boardwalk recently for a certain 10-year-old Birthday, Katie was super excited to go on the rides. We figured she'd love the little kiddie rides like helicopters that go in a circle and maybe even go up and down.

Yup, she liked it alright.

After that ride she started pulling us towards the bigger (and better in her opinion) rides.

Bumper Cars?

Loved 'em. Really loved 'em when she was "bumping" into her sisters and Daddy!

Next we put her on the kiddie version of the Drop Zone . . . you know, the kind where it shoots you up high and kinda "drops" you down.

She figured it was going to be fun . . .

But once is started it was more than fun . . . it was "the best ride ever!" according to Katie!

We finished the day off at the Pirate Ship. It starts off slowly, but by the end of the ride is flinging you from side to hide, giving your tummy that little flip-flop that we now know Katie looooooves!

(Note that while Katie was having the time of her life, the now 10-year-old whose birthday we were celebrating - not too thrilled!)

Who would have thought we had an amusement-park-ride-junkie on our hands? By the end of the day, she would never agree to go on the boring helicopter ride again . . . the bigger, the faster, the higher the ride, the better!

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This post is part of the blogging series, Sunday Snapshots.

Read me my story again!!

I'm not sure if it's a ploy to stay up a few minutes longer, or if she really does love having us read from her book . . . but lately we've been hearing a lot of this phrase:

"Read me my story, again! Pleeeeeeeeease!"

What exactly is her story, her book, you might be asking?

It's her Lifebook, aptly entitled "Becoming Katie Mei."

I know, I know . . . now you are asking what exactly is a Lifebook, right?

A Lifebook is the "story" of your adopted child's life, from birth on. It's an opportunity to teach your child that every minute of their life has value and purpose, and even though their story includes loss, it also includes gain, redemption, and purpose.

I had always intended to create a Lifebook for Katie, but always got stuck on the wording, choosing the right pictures, making sure it looked just so. Somehow I always got sidetracked and never completed her book. But when Katie went to Preschool last year it became very clear, very quickly, that she needed to understand her story better and we needed a way to present her story to curious classmates.

We've always been good at talking to Katie about her beginnings in China, but somehow a 4 year old explaining the complicated and amazing process of adoption to another 4 year old just wasn't working.

So I got over myself and worked on her Lifebook. I somehow managed to cut back on my words and make more of the meaning. (That's hard for me, you know. Verbose is a word often used to describe me!)

These days Katie's Lifebook can be found by her bed, on the coffee table, sitting on the bookshelf or laying on the floor. It's beautiful. It's meaningful. It has nice words and pretty pictures.

But more than being nice to look at, Katie's Lifebook is meant to be read. Over and over and over. It's meant to honor her beginnings and the country from which she has come. It's meant to show her that God created her in her birthmother's womb and that He always has and always will have a plan for her life. It's meant to show her that our family loves her very, very much and we will always be her Forever Family.

Really, it doesn't matter if she's headed to bed early or late. If that ridiculously cute little girl calls out, "Read me my story again . . . pleeeeeeeease," we will answer her request . . . every.single.time.

Click here to view this photo book larger

The F5 in '09

Sweet Summer Review

Wow. I'm back. Betcha didn't think that would happen . . .
neither did I.

But I've received complaints, encouragement, snide comments, begging, and finally, some serious "pushing" from Ron to get this blog caught up.

It's not that I don't want to, it's just that, well, um,

I have Katie.

Enough said.

Moving on to our summer in review . . . it was a wonderful, glorious, sun filled, fun filled, family filled, summer.

At the end of last summer, when Kelsey and I looked back at the previous 10 weeks and realized that we had spent 7 of them in bed with mono, we immediately began making plans for the Summer of 2008. Big plans. Lots of them. Involving the beach and friends and family and food and fun. And what do you know - it worked! The best laid plans really did come to pass - nothing short of miraculous!

Here's a quick recap of how we spent our summer vacation:

Emily turned seven and we celebrated with a tea party!

Katie got a new swimsuit and she just knew how darn cute she looked:

Emily and Kelsey were in a dance recital. Emily performed a tap routine while Kelsey did a ballet number with her best friend. The girls did great and we were sooooo proud:

We went to the beach . . . alot . . . with friends and without . . . alot . . . and it was great . . . every time:

Katie was busy looking cute:

We celebrated the 4th of July:

Daddy read "The Little Mouse, The Red Ripe Strawberry and The Big Hungry Bear" to Katie about a bajillion times:

Ron changed jobs this summer, so we took advantage of a couple of days off and headed for a quick vacation down to Pismo Beach. We hadn't gone away like that in aaaaaages, and boy, did we have a crazy good time:

Katie "learned" how to bowl:

Emily continued her obsession with skirts and leggings:

The girls practiced doing hair on Katie:

We watched High School Musical 2 with crazy and fun friends:

and I learned how to scrapbook digitally . . . just what I needed, I new hobby:

Whew. If you hung in there 'till the end, you must really love our family (or really think Katie is super cute - which she is!!!).
Thanks for sharing our summer memories with us . . . we're so grateful to God for providing us health and a wonderful place to live where we can enjoy all He has created!

I love me some bows!

OK, are those some cute bows, or what?! Of course, having them on such a crazy cute kid doesn't hurt any!!
Katie's hair has been a little dilemma from the start . . . what we thought were her bangs, really aren't. That hair you see being clipped in every picture, that hair starts way back at the back of her head . . . so if we cut them like bangs - well, that wouldn't be so cute.
So the solution . . .
we clip.
And if you are going to clip, you'd better have cute clips. Colorful clips. Clips to match specific outfits. Clips just because.
And we've finally found our supplier of clips . . . we've looked long and hard and now I've discovered Punkinhead Hairwear . This gal makes the most beautiful bows . . . and she's been a treat to work with! She has a gazillion different colors, patterns and shapes of bows . . . she has bows of the month, Gymboree colored bows, french clips, alligator clips . . . seriously, it's bow mania over there! :) I bought Katie a bunch of the baby bows - these bows are on alligator clips and they work amazingly!
OK, enough about the bows . . . but I couldn't help sharing these too cute pictures with you!
Be watching for a St. Patty's Day picture . . . and of course, Katie will be wearing a matching green bow!!!

Katie's favorite past times

Katie's been busy lately . . .

Coloring. Lots of coloring. And she's discovered she fits perfectly into our cute little vintage school desk. Too bad that's also Emily's favorite spot. I'm thinking Emily's been ousted and Katie's set up permanent residence. When we turn on the ipod (right on the bookcase behind the desk), Katie climbs up onto the chair and rocks out to the music. Happy as a clam.

Talking on the phone is also a new favorite of Katie's! Whenever I'm on the phone, she's pulling on my pant leg, begging, "hello, hello, HELLO?!?!" She loves to talk to Grandma and Grandpa. I've got them primed and ready with questions . . . what are you doing? what did you eat today? did you watch tv? what does the cow say? You get the picture. Exciting, stimulating conversation to say the least!

Obviously, Katie thinks she's interesting:

The best part of any phone conversation with Katie is the ending. She always tells you that she "wuvs you" and then gives you a big smooch:

I do think Katie's favorite past time is posing for the camera. I swear, she knows when she's looking cute. She actually poses for the camera now - she smiles at us, turns to the side, and flares out her arms. It's hilarious. Seriously.

We know you'll all agree - everybody does love this certain brown eyed girl!!!!