Maybe she will grow up and be a princess......

or maybe NOT!!!





Mom, can we just stop with the pictures...I'm really getting annoyed.

Hurricane Hannah makes landfall...

In Naples, Italy




I guess a girl needs on shoes to brave the hurricane that hit her room!

Hannah LOVES shoes

I bet I change her shoes at least 10 times a day, per her request...which is something along the lines of her walking up to me holding out a pair of shoes going uuhh, uuhh, uuhh, uuhh, uuhh....then when I sit down to change her shoes she gets sooooo excited!!

You also see that she holds a shoe when she sucks her thumb. Some babies are comforted by blanket or a stuffed animal. Just give Hannah a pair of shoes and her thumb!!!

In one of the pictures Hannah has a scowl on her face and appears to be looking down at something....I had put a band aid on her thumb to see if she would give her poor thumb a break from all the sucking...well, it didn't work. She worked at that band aid until she was able to suck the band aid right off her thumb (and no, she didn't swallow the band aid). Oh well, I thought it might be worth a try. Her poor little thumb is so huge and swollen from her sucking on it with her mouthful of teeth.

What do you hate?

Four year olds have a way of simplifying life...one day as I walked with Mary (my friend Portia's daughter) she just nonchalantly asked me what I hated. I was caught a little off guard until Mary started rattling off the things she hated (wet grass was on the top of her list). So for Mary's sake I have thought of a few things I hate....simplified in 4 year old fashion.
1. Poopy diapers
2. Mosquitoes
3. Reserved officer parking at the commissary
4. The TV show the Bachelor (why, oh why would any woman subject themselves to that...even for 5 minutes of fame)
5. Alarm clocks

Then Mary went on to ask me what I loved. I didn't answer quickly enough so she asked, well you must love marshmallows. Well, I do love marshmallows, but not as much as chocolate!! or WINE!!! And I love 4 year olds and their innocence.

Hannah is our future little Michael Phelps...or not!

She LOVES the water and is so brave. I figure if I start her early enough there will certainly be a gold medal in her future. Just maybe not from the Olympics.... She deserves a medal just for being so darn cute!!!!

How did this happen?

How can it be that my baby, my first born, my son is 13 years old??? How is that possible?

A few weeks ago Alex was giving his best effort at convincing me why I should allow him to go see a rated R movie. He was listing off all the reasons and I looked at him dumbfounded and confused. I thought how in the world is this possible? How can I possibly be having this conversation with my OWN CHILD?? Not because I was shocked that he would want to see a rated R movie, but because I had this flashback of this EXACT same conversation with my own mother when I was trying to convince her to allow ME to go see a rated R movie (Purple Rain staring Prince). Has it really been that long ago that I stood in front of my own mom and begged the same request?

Looking at Alex now I know first hand how quickly time goes by. My "baby" is now 5'8", 120 lbs., size 11 shoe and a TEENAGER!! And so the fun begins.

private vs. public

I originally started this blog specifically for family & friends to follow along on our adoption journey. Many people have told me how much they have enjoyed reading the blog as we traveled to China and brought Hannah home. But I think now I want to shift the focus of the blog and make it more of a place for my family and close friends to see pictures and read about the life and times of the Linton family (which could prove to be some boring reading as we lead fairly uneventful lives). I am going to make the blog open by invitation only (even though I know that nothing is truly private when posted on the internet) so at least I will know who is reading. I'll see how this goes for a few weeks/months. I may just nix the whole blogging idea all together and work on my scrapbook instead.