U.S. Citizen for 3 Months

Today marks 3 months since Lili's little feet touched U.S. soil and she became a U.S. citizen. In many ways, time has flown by, but I still find myself looking at her at some point during the day and being amazed that she's here.

Most adoptive parents understand the sadness of missing out on so many firsts in our children's young lives, so in celebration of Lili being home 3 months, I've decided to post photos of some of her recent firsts for Favorite Photo Friday.

Last weekend we met some friends at a local zoo. Lili loves animals, although I'm not quite sure how they feel about her :-) I don't think she had been this up close to a goat before, but she wasn't at all afraid.

If you need more proof that she wasn't afraid, here is Lili trying to kiss a goat and it looks like the goat was returning the kiss. For those concerned about germs don't worry, she only attempted to kiss the goats, but was never completely successful.Another first for Lili was a ride on the carousel. She was all smiles sitting on a hippo, at least while the carousel wasn't moving. Once that hippo started going up and down, the smiles quickly faded and this is where we ended up.The good news is that she did like being on the carousel and she made it very clear that she wanted to go again, so we rode a second time.

If you read my post from a couple days ago, you know that we've officially started the process for adoption #2. By-the-way, Dave doesn't refer to our next adoption as adoption #2, but as "our last adoption." :-) Anyway, we needed to send a photo of Dave, Lili and I together with our application and I realized that since it's usually Dave or I taking pictures, the only one I could find was one that my friend Cammie took during our visit trip back in October. I decided it was time to get some pictures of the 3 of us. I pulled out the owner's manual for my camera and quickly figured out how to set the timer so we could get a picture for our application package. I actually managed to get some decent pictures and thought I'd share our attempts with everyone.

I didn't send this one because Dave was partially hiding behind Lili's head.

No, not this one either. I'm now hiding partially behind Lili's head, but only because I'm trying to keep her from escaping.

Okay, this is a good one. However, Lili was still considering an escape. Maybe we could get a shot with my hand in a different position.

This one would have been really good if Dave was smiling, so we'll have to try again.

Smiles and/or pleasant looks, good hand position, I think we have a winner!!!!!

Finally, the photo shoot is over and we now have some recent photos of the 3 of us. Maybe we can get pictures with the boys in the future. LOL!!!!!