My First Hand Me Downs

Tagg, January 2009, 6 months

...from my brother. Sorry, girl! You thought you were out of the woods on hand-me-downs what with being the only daughter and having a mother with a bit of a shopping addiction. Not so lucky!

Sloane, January 2011, 8 months

My favorite Aunt Kris gave Tagg these darling jammies when they met him for the first time in January of 2009. Of course, I saved them thinking they might have some sentimental value...more for me, than him I suspect but whatever! Sloane has been wearing these same jammies since she was about 5 months, and a couple of weeks ago I realized she was about to grow out of them and we needed a picture! She can't even straighten her legs! So it's a little forced, sure, but I wanted a photographic memory of those jammies on my babies. Because every time I put them on and snapped them up and laid them down in their beds in those green p.j.'s, it felt like my Aunt Kris was here, giving them a big hug, and a sweet kiss, and one of her boisterous oh-so-joyful-I-love-you laughs.

And, let's face it...it's kind of perfect that NEITHER of them will bust out a freaking smile for the camera. Seriously? Seriously!!

The Star Quilt

When we met Sloane's baby mama and grandma today, they gave her a very special gift...a star quilt. Apparently it was supposed to be for Christmas but it took a little journey around the country to get completed. Well worth the wait!

Sloane's birth father is half Sioux and these quilts are a tribal tradition that started in the late 19th century when the tribes were relegated to the reservations, the buffalo herds had disappeared and the missionaries taught new ways to express their art through quilting. My mother is a quilter and I knew that there must be a story behind the design so I did a little snooping online and the stories are beautiful, and they make the meaning behind this lovely gift so much more rich and layered.

The triangular points of the star symbolize the quilter's reaching out from the middle star, which forms a circle. They reach out to loved ones, drawing them back to the sacred circle. When you are given a Star Quilt it is truly a gift of warmth and honor. Star quilts hold several symbolic representations of life, spirituality, and community for the Native Americans. It represents that it takes a community to make a whole.


The star quilt tells a story, just like the painted buffalo hides. The colors red, black, white, and yellow are symbolic to the Lakota. Black Elk is quoted as saying, “Black is for the west where the thunder beings send us rain. White is for the north, where the great white cleansing wind comes. Red is for the east where springs the light and the morning star. Yellow is for the south, where summer comes along with the power to grow.”

"Arise!  Arise!  Come see the morning star."  This centuries old call from the camp crier, as he rode through the Indian encampment, awakened the people to their day. For the Northern Plains Indians of the Dakotas, the sighting of the morning star still heralds a new beginning, a new day dawning.

And they sometimes hide little
messages in the fine needlework patterns
in the quilt. Found it!

I love that. Sloane's adoption was a new beginning for our family and for Bella and Jacob and all of us, as a community, will create a wonderful and whole life for her.

Apparently the women of the tribe often bestow these star quilts as gifts for a new baby, welcoming them to the family, so it's especially sweet that this one came from Bella and her mom and her mom's mom, and that they place so much value on Jacob's Native American heritage and want her to be proud of it and want it to be part of her. I love that Sloane gets to have some of this history and culture to weave into her life. We have a lot to learn, but it will be fun to do it together!

Of course, this also means I'm going to have to redecorate her room to match because it's so lovely. Great!

A First Anniversary

This might be the cutest picture ever. Look at those smiles!

Today we went to meet Sierra and her mom for lunch to kind of celebrate the one-year anniversary of our first meeting. They hadn't seen Sloane in almost 3 months and after a little rocky start where she burst into tears when we first walked into the restaurant, she was really good, as was Tagg. She chewed on Sierra's necklace, ate a whole piece of corn bread and showed off her new teeth.

It was fun to reminisce about our first meeting and catch up on everything. It's nice to know that a year later, everything still feels so "right."

 It was a beautiful day for January so we walked down to the Starbucks and had a coffee and took some photos to commemorate the event. Amazing to think that just a year ago, we were so full of hope and nerves and today it was like seeing family. We have this joyous, lovely little girl to adore every day and this special relationship.

She finally sleeps.
Good day.

Tagg made the most of the trip...in the water fountain. In January. In his clothes. He had a BALL! I guess I can no longer mock those parents who pack up a cooler and sit and watch their kids play in this fountain in the summer. We did walk straight down to Baby Gap and bought him some new, dry clothes (I'll bet that place makes a fortune off of water fountain-suckers like us). He changed right in the store and we cut the tags off, stuffed his wet clothes in a Gap bag and off we went. The lady was looking at us like we were crazy!

The water damage is done. Tagg's new threads...cute and on sale!

Happy New Year!

Well, I'm only three weeks late getting the New Years blog up. I think that means I've broken a resolution! Or maybe that I never started any. Hard to tell!

We spent the night at Mark and Jenny's which was awesome. We had a ball playing with the kids and trying out our new Wii games. Dance Party is a riot. I'm not sure the video of us ladies rocking our Ke$ha is worthy of prime time, but watching Nikelle and Tagg mimic the dance moves behind us on the pool table is priceless!

Tagg managed to make it all the way to midnight, with a certain amount of encouragement from Nikelle who ran laps with him around the living room till midnight, after the dance party! Where do they get the energy?! Sloane didn't quite have that kind of staying power, thank goodness! And for some crazy reason, me and Tiff who are usually the first ones to sneak off to bed were on a tear that night. Must have been all the Wii-drenaline or something but we just kept going and going. Jenny finally called it at about 3:30...no more Wii, girls! Your babies are going to be up early! She was right. Like clockwork, they were wide awake at 7:30am. Luckily they were both up for family nap time that day! A pretty great way to start the new year!

Sloane snoozed through her
first New Year's Eve but she got kisses
from mommy and daddy and big brother.

Tagg's still learning how to "cheese."

Tagg & Nikelle take a break
from running laps in the living room.

Nikelle loves baby Sloane.