Subject: Good news
January 27, 1999

Hello to all my family and friends!

Mommy is really excited and she told me all about it. Today all the papers for the finalization of the adoption were submitted to the court. It means mommy and daddy and I should be going to see the judge sometime the first two weeks of April. My friend Jane ( shes a nice lady) has three adopted grandchildren and she told mommy and me how nice it was to go to the court. The judge reads all the papers and then he will talk to me! My aunt Kim may come and my friend John-John and his mom Carol may come. My mommy is also going to invite our friend Mary, who is a birthmother, to come with her children.

I have been standing up on everything. I especially like to get on top of the quitar case and do my dance. My mom and dad were worried because I haven;t been eating or sleeping as much, but its just too exciting to be crawling and stuff. All the books say that I shouldn;t want to do anything but practice my major motor skills and they are right. Why would anybody want to eat cereal when you could be chasing a cat around the room?

My visit with my grandfather Horton was good, he brought me a great toy. Its a soft box with plush toys that fit inside. I am having a great time learning how to put things in and take things out. Last night I tried to put something in that was to big to fit.This is all such fun to learn. We played the guitar together and he laughed. I liked his glasses and tryed to pull them off.

One of my recent favorites is banging the cat food bowls on the floor. I can get them to twirl a long time on end like a top. And they sound great when you smash them down.

I also have been practicing drinking. Most of it pours down my front, but its still funto do what mom and dad do.

On Thursday I start to daycare fulltime,or almost. Up till now I have been going on Monday Wednesday and Friday. This week I go on Thursday like abig girl. Mom doesn;t have to go to work fulltime until March 15, so she is going to help me gradually get into this. I really like my friends at daycare, so I think it will be harder on Mommy because she will miss me.

Mommy wnet for a run in the rainlast night and I went in my jog stroller. I didn;t get wet, but I really liked it. I took a good nap on daddy's stomach afterward.The outdoors always makes me relax. There is snow on our mountains, maybe I will get to see it before it all melts.

I am going to john-john's birthday partyon Saturday. Mommy got him a inflated bounce-on-top-ball. I want to be bigger quick!

Mom says Aunt Susan is moving! Maybe her house will have less stairs so I can visit. She may come to see me in February. It will be fun to crawl over to see her.

Mommy redocrated my nursery so that I could crawl around in it. She put up the pooh picture that greatgrandfather and greatgrandmother sent me and it looks wonderful! It matches the pooh stickers that daddy put on the wall. Mommy also hung up the ark quilt that grandmother Ann sent me. It looks beautiful and goes with all the colors in the room.

Mostly now we have to put my clothes on on while I lie on a big bed because I don;t want to hold still for anything. Sometimes I just wear diapers, I don;t know why everybody doesn;t.

I am getting so independent right now that I really need my dependent snuggle time. Mom and Daddy are holding me a lot, but only until I am ready to get down and explore more!

Purple is one of my favorite colors. Mom keeps dressing me in pink and dad keeps dressing me in red. I like anything that's soft. Mommy says grandmother Mary is making me a drag around quilt, I am excited because my big big brother Bugsy helped pick out the fabrics.

I am sending my hello. If you were here I would wave bye bye for you Love

Emily