That writing about Chickfila would garner more comments than most other posts these days.  Thanks for the responses.  I will have to agree with everyone who discussed their customer service – they carried my tray to my table and had someone expediting the drive through (with pen and paper!) when I was leaving.

Today is Tessa’s feeding evaluation.  She has improved some but not enough for me to cancel the appointment so we will head down town for 3 hours at a non-child friendly children’s hospital.  I’m not looking forward to it.  At all.  But my reward is FOOTBALL!  Titans vs Steelers tonight.  It should be a fantastic game – GO STEELERS!

Sabrina is still loving her ballet class.  She doesn’t seem to follow directions well or wait for her turn very well (surprise – I thought all 3 year olds did those things well?) but she asks every day if she can go to ballet so she must like the class.  Her teacher said she follows directions well (which wasn’t what I observed) – perhaps she meant to add “for a 3 year old”. Regardless, she is a darn cute ballerina.  (You’ll notice in this photo she is the only one who doesn’t have her hands on her hips as directed.)

You all know I stir the pot sometimes and discuss things I know will get people talking.  This is one of those times.

When I moved south, I started hearing talk about Chickfila.  I didn’t think much of it.  Then people started saying how lucky I was to live somewhere with easy access to Chickfila.  And all of the moms at the now defunct Bellevue mall gathered at the Chickfila in the food court after playing in the play area.  I noticed there were often long lines at Chickfila.  I thought I would give it a try.  I had lunch at the one in the mall.  It was fine.  Nothing worth remarking on either way – just fine.  I didn’t give it much more thought.

I continue to see that the southerns worship at the altar of the Chickfila.  The drive thru line spills out of the parking lot as you near the lunch hour.  I had the opportunity to eat there again a couple of weeks ago.  It was again fine.  I had the standard chicken sandwich pictured above.  I bought Sabrina a small kids meal with chicken nuggets.  Our total for those 2 meals was $9.20.  My sandwich was fine.  The waffles fries seemed slightly undercooked but I hear that is the way they do them.  Sabrina’s nuggets were probably the best of the fast food versions I’ve seen – actual chicken breaded lightly rather than something questionable formed into a nugget shape. They did provide some choices for sides rather than fries which is nice – but most places do that these days.

I just don’t understand the southern love of Chickfila.  I don’t dislike it but it doesn’t rate above neutral on my radar.  While I don’t eat fast food often, I can tell you that McD’s has the best fries, Hardee’s the best burgers (mushroom swiss thickburger – yum), Arby’s has the best sandwiches, and Sonic is only good for drinks.  I guess I can give Chickfila the best nugget category but we almost never order that kind of thing so it seems like a throw away category.

So someone from the south school me.  What is all the fuss about? What am I missing?

We had a great weekend with Aunt Lulu and Uncle Pat (or King Pat in Sabrina speak) but it reminded us how very far from home we are.  We miss having family close by and friends who we can sit up with way too late and drink way too many bottles of wine while solving all of the world’s problems.  And the girls were in heaven.  Sabrina, of course, adores everyone who acknowledges her individual level of wonderful.  And Tessa has decided that people other than the designated bottle getters might just be okay after all.  They loved having someone other that mommy and daddy to climb on and play with.  And Steve and I loved hanging out with them after the girls were in bed.  It also reminded me that this side of 30 means I need to quit drinking talking and go to bed at a reasonable hour because wow I need more sleep than that!

Sabrina was so busy with her new toys, she didn’t even yell at Tessa for touching her “old” stuff.  Tessa took full advantage of this.

We often complain that our little town has nothing but chain restaurants so we traipsed toward downtown to a German restaurant.  While we all agreed the entrees were good, we thought everything else was just average and the prices were on the high side.  Tessa was just starting to not feel good so she made the rounds of the laps to keep her happy.

Sabrina wants you all to know she was there too.

She would also like to show off her “Princess Halloween” (her name for it) dress which she insisted on wearing today because it twirls well.  (She was twirling with her “wand” here.)

Y’all thought I was going to get on my soapbox about this Obama school speech drama didn’t you?  Nope. Blood pressure doesn’t need it today.  Maybe tomorrow.

Sabrina LOVES her kitchen. She immediately checked out all of the drawers and doors.  Her grandma and Pap-pap got her a bucket of play food and she had a few plates and cups – she immediately set about organizing everything.

She has been having so much fun with Aunt Lulu and Uncle Pat in addition to all of her new toys and books. She has also been working over time to keep Tessa away from her new stuff.

I can’t believe Sabrina is 3 today.  I very clearly remember this day 3 years ago.  I was having a meltdown.  An ugly-cry kind of meltdown.  I was in great despair that we would never receive our referral and would never have a child.  Distanced from that time, it is hard to understand exactly why I was having that sort of reaction but we had been passed over several times for a referral from our agency for reasons I won’t rehash and I was losing my mind.  September 4, 2006 was Labor Day.  A group of referrals were given that day and we weren’t in that batch. I had a long conversation with our case manager – she talked me off the ledge.  While I was boo-hooing and feeling sorry for myself, a lovely young girl in Guatemala was in labor.  I was booking a ticket to visit my mom because I needed to get out of town.  And she was giving birth to this amazing child.  That young woman is often on my mind but never more than on Sabrina’s birthday.  I wish I could thank her and show her this amazing daughter we share.  Some day I hope to do that.

Sabrina declared she wanted orange balloons, cupcakes, and candles for her birthday.  I love a girl who is easy to please.

She loves to help me cook so she helped me make cupcakes this morning.

And she got to lick both beaters since it was her birthday.  She declared “I love my birthday! It is delicious!”

And Tessa wants you to know that last night’s behavior was just because she was tired.

More birthday photos later tonight or tomorrow.

For the past 6 months, when I took photos this is what I saw regardless of what was on the other side of the camera.  Fortunately, it recorded the photos – I just wasn’t sure exactly what I would get until I uploaded them to my computer.  Sort of like film photography without the view finder.  Our Sony Cybershot was a great camera – I loved it until the day it violently met our ceramic tile floor courtesy of Tessa.  I’ve spent the past 6 months saving Amazon gift cards received for product reviews and collecting Swagbucks and holding onto a gift card so that I could buy a new camera without taking it out of our monthly budget.  And I won another Visa gift card from a giveaway on BusyMom’s review blog (plus enough salad dressing to keep us going for at least a year – woohoo!).  In the end, I spent $8.87 out of pocket – partially because I was too impatient to go with the free super saver shipping (I swear they strap it to a turtle when you choose the free shipping).  Today, my new camera, my precious – it arrived and it is beautiful:

Panasonic Lumix ZS1 if you are curious

I had to wait 2 hours for the battery to charge before I could play with it and it was torture!  Then I had to finish cleaning the kitchen.  I was so excited to play with it – I could hardly stand it.

It was Tessa’s bedtime so excuse her lack of smiles.

Expect lots of photo filled posts!

Number of bobby pins required to make a bun: 9

Number of little girls in Sabrina’s dance class: 6 (I know there are only 4 here…1 was in the hall crying and the other was late)

Number of times I heard the teacher ask Sabrina to leave the things in the teacher’s cubby alone: 4 (there were wands – the girl has never met a wand she didn’t love

Number of holes in the knees of Sabrina’s tights after 1 class: 3 (guess who is shopping for sturdier tights right this very moment)

Number of times I rolled my eyes at the mom who waited until arriving at the dance studio to try to take a photo of her daughter in her leotard because she couldn’t anticipate that her 3 year old plus 5 other 3 year olds might result in too much distraction for her child to stand still and look at her but she kept trying and got more shrill with each request that her child SMILE! AND! STAND! STILL! AND! LOOK! AT! MOMMY!: 2

Number of times I wished I had some way of entertaining Tessa that wouldn’t end with her crawling into the class: 13

Number of times I thought it takes a special person to try to herd cats teach 3 year olds to follow directions/dance (with a little southern “bless her heart” thrown in): 37

Number of times Sabrina declared that she loved ballet on the way home: 5

Sabrina had a great time at her class.  She went into the room without crying – she did keep telling me to come with her.  I followed behind until she got into the room and then stood where she could see me for a couple of minutes.  Her teacher said afterward that she seemed to hang back at first but then after she watched for a little while she jumped right in.  That is typical of how Sabrina handles new situations.  She observes for a few minutes but once she is comfortable she throws herself into whatever it is.

She had a little trouble listening and following directions.  I’m sure it is a combination of this being her first class situation and being 3.  The teacher did a great job trying to keep everyone on track and kept everyone moving along.  I am curious to see how it goes as the girls get to know one another and as they start to learn a little bit.  Regardless, that was a room full of cute!

We are having unseasonably cool weather here so the girls and I have been able to take walks and play at the play ground.  Tessa is finally old enough to appreciate the swings.  She thought they were great and giggled every time I pushed her higher.  I think she is going to be a little daredevil.  This weekend we were at a restaurant and she managed to stand up in her high chair.  (Sabrina didn’t do that in 2+ years of high chair sitting.)  We managed to stop her from doing a dive off the high chair but it was awhile before mommy’s heart rate returned to normal.

The food issues are improving.  She is trying to eat things with chunks and textures.  She isn’t always successful but she seems to want to eat them now.  That is a big step forward.  I’m going to wait and see how things progress this week before deciding if we should keep the feeding therapy evaluation appointment or not.  I probably will but if she makes great strides this week I don’t think we’ll bother with it.

Sabrina insisted that she and Tessa needed to wear jackets with their shorts on Sunday morning because it was cold.  I wasn’t in the mood to fight with her about it – so they are wearing short and jackets.  And as someone pointed out on facebook, the ladies at the mercado in Antigua would be proud!  Although they would likely still scold me for not having a hat on her.  (For my non-adoption friends, when we walked around with our babies in Antigua, the ladies would scold us if the babies weren’t wearing long sleeves, hats, and shoes.  They would sometimes go as far as to say we were going to kill our babies by not covering their heads.  They even said this when it was 85 degrees and I had a baby shaped sweat mark on my chest because I was wearing the little furnace in a Bjorn.)

And I had to share this because it made me laugh.  Sabrina is such a little mommy.  She always wants to comfort/feed/tickle/put to bed/take care of her babies and animals.  I came into the living room after putting her to bed the other night and found this. (She isn’t sure what to do with her Sit N Spin so she has decided it is a little table.)   The red things are plastic apples from another toy and they are resting on a pink Barbie plate.  The next morning she immediately went to them and explained to me that her animals were crying because they were hungry.  She was feeding them apples.

Tomorrow?  Tune in for tales from Sabrina’s first dance class and many photos.

Any tips on getting her fine hair into a bun as required without a bottle of hairspray?  I have to go buy 1000’s of bobby pins tonight.