June Update

It's time for me to update the blog. We've had such a busy summer and I'm constantly thinking to myself "I should put that on the blog" or "that was funny -- I need to write about it on the blog", but it just doesn't happen. So I'm now going to do my best to catch up with our summer activities.

I had a monumental adoption moment a couple weeks ago. For the first time I felt like Valencia's mom and not just her caregiver. I read a lot of articles about adoption before Valencia came home to prepare us for the experience and all of them dealt with the child and how to talk to them about adoption or how to respond to others that say things to you in public in front of your child or behavioral things to expect from your child, etc. But I never read anything about how we would feel as parents towards an older adopted child and how you don't or may not automatically bond with them. I think that surprised both me and Jared and has been challenging for us. We're working with a lot of emotional and behavioral issues and I think generally I'm on edge wondering what she's going to do next. She's definitely come a long way and made HUGE improvements emotionally since she came home - she really has and when I think back to our first two weeks it's amazing to see how different things are now. And when she began to be able to communicate with us it helped bond with her because we got to see more of her personality and just hear her talk about the cute and funny things that kids talk about. But I still just felt like a caregiver. But 2 weeks ago I had two days in a row where I felt like her mom and it was SUCH a great feeling. I don't even know what was different but it was great to feel that way and I know that things will continue in that direction. And just last Thursday I felt that way again. This time there was something different. The girls started swimming lessons and swimming is something that Valencia LOVES. She is a natural and has no fear and at her lesson she did such a great job listening to the teacher and following the instructions (which is something she still struggles with). She was honestly the best one in the class and I sat watching feeling like a proud mom. It was sooooo nice to be in public and see her behave so well and get to enjoy her. I usually feel a little uptight when I'm in public with her because she's typically loud or dancing all over the place bumping into people or knocking things over or mad about something and refusing to walk with me, etc. So I can't tell you how nice it was to find something that she loves doing and wants to do well and behave good and follow instructions and I can be there with her and enjoy her. Here are some pics



June -- Trip to Outer Banks, North Carolina

We had a Layton family trip this summer in June and had a great time. We stayed in a beach house in North Carolina and had so much fun going to the beach every day and playing with the cousins.



We didn't start the trip off great -- about 2 miles from arriving to the beach house we got in an accident. No one was hurt and since we were so close we were able to have our car towed to the beach house where we unloaded it. And luckily, we didn't really need a car that week because the beach was so close. We just had to rent one to get home.



I LOVE how close my girls are!!



We're on the left -- I'm holding Tallie and Jared is holding Beckett and Valencia is between us in the yellow shirt.See the crab in his hand -- they were all over the beach!