Happy Easter!

Yesterday, the girls got all gussied up and, among other things, hunted for Easter eggs at church. This year, there was a lot of encouragement for the women (aged 1 - 100+) to wear a hat for Easter.

Before the hunt got under way, all of the kids gathered in the chapel and awaited further instruction.

Jo took the opportunity to get some love from her wonderful God-mother.


And here's our darling God-daughter, Emma. She was not totally awake, just yet.


Phoebe, desperate for the hunt to begin, shunned the paparazzi and refused autographs.


Oh, the coy superstar.


J was happy to oblige her adoring fans.


Phoebe finally decides to show her face.

And the hunt is on...


I think this picture begs the caption, "Look Up!"


Eggs are everywhere. One must always be on the lookout for them.

Meanwhile, on the lawn where the little kids were...


One of Jo's great joys in life is picking things up and putting them into something else, so the egg hunt was right up her alley. Interestingly, most of the eggs she picked up were blue.


Why limit yourself to eggs? Acorns will do just fine.


Going to put the acorns into her basket.

It was a bit chilly, it IS Texas after all, but everyone had lots of fun.

Balance - It's a Wonderful Thing

My girl...we're so proud of her.


This occurred on Saturday evening. She'd been outside playing all day and around 6:15 asked Allen to take her training wheels off! Apparently they were high enough off the ground that she'd been riding without them anyway. Off she went.

Yesterday, she mastered a two-wheel scooter, so today we got her one of her own. She's zooming down the hill on anything she can.

Conversations With Jo

(I just love this picture of her glancing over at her daddy)

Josie has been becoming much more "conversant" lately... if you have a parent's ear for her words. She's really cracking us up.

Last week, she was playing with some plastic bugs and dumped them out of the container. I said, "Josie, can you put those back in?" Josie said, "yeah." (I guess we need to work on manners now.) After a little more playing, I said, "Josie, you're going to have to put the bugs back into the container, okay?" Josie responded, "Day"(for 'kay). It was too cute. Now, it's a fairly common thing for her to say yes, yeah, and day when we ask her a question instead of just nodding (though she does still nod a lot).

She also spoke a two word phrase last week. This girl loves brushing her teeth. We have a little toothbrush and training tooth paste (that's OK to swallow) and we brush her teeth at least twice a day. She'd like to do it 4 or 5 times if we'd let her. Last week when I got her up from a nap, she pointed to her sink and said, "Buh Tee." I almost dropped her. I said, "Do you want to brush your teeth?" and she nodded furiously.

We've known that she has a good understanding of what we say to her. It's nice to hear her say so.

I'm Sorry....It's....March?

Well, weather has always been freaky in Texas. I posted pictures of the snow we got on Monday night. There wasn't much to it. It melted within a couple of hours Tuesday morning.

Yesterday there was talk of more wintry weather coming today.


Around noon, big snow flakes started falling. I sent a message to Allen telling him the white stuff was sticking - at least to our driveway and street. Hmmm. Are you sure?
Yes. It's sticking a little bit. Then the snow stopped and it started raining. P was beside herself because the snow was going away and she didn't play in it. Then it started sleeting, but just for a couple of minutes. Then the big flakes started falling again.

Same shot a couple of hours after the first.

Our house. Um...yes, it's sticking....


A view from our balcony.

Guess what. It's 3:30. NOW Allen's on his way home. I'm not sure when he'll be here.

Can You Believe It's Been a Year?

One year ago today, we first laid our eyes on this amazing and beautiful sight...

Monday, The Second Part

Last night, we all went to church for a meal. We've done this the past few weeks and it's lots of fun. Last night was once again fun. I'm astounded (for some reason) by the amount of love that is shown for my children at events like this. People were fighting over Jo. My intent has been to feed her and then put her into the nursery during the performances that follow dinner. That has not been the case. I have been able to eat my meal each time without holding her and without pushing her off on someone else. She's been taken from me! After a comment by MB, I should probably take a camera with me next time to capture these moments of my daughter with these dear people.

On the way to church, around 6:00, it was actually snowing a little bit. And why not? It is MARCH after all and we've barely had any cold weather all winter. Ah, Texas.

When we left church about 7:45 it was "pouring" snow. OK, I'd say "pouring" if it were rain. I have very little experience with large amounts of snow falling from the sky. What's the word used for that? It was pretty hard to see while driving with the snow blowing straight at the windshield. But we made it home.

That's when it occurred to me...Has my South China girl ever seen snow? I know she hasn't in the last 9 months. So, we had to take pictures. The first one makes my eyes a bit misty.



You can also get a little bit of a look at where she busted her top lip on Sunday.

What a day. Today, of course is supposed to be in the 50's. Most of the snow is already gone, but the neighborhood kids did start congregating outside at about 7:30 this morning and played for a couple of hours. They had a blast.

Monday, The First Part

Warning - this post may put songs in your head for the rest of the day. Songs you don't necessarily want in your head all day.


Phoebe has been studying Egypt this year at school. Yesterday was her class's festival where they showed us all they'd learned.

Here are 4 of the 168 pictures that her proud Daddy took yesterday.




She had a blast, as you can see. It was a lot of fun for us, too!

Today Is The Day!

Today marks the day that Josie has been with us longer than she was without us. My how she's changed from the first moment we held her...

...to today...

She has a fascination with her belly


She's quite limber (and sensitive to the slightest bit of anything on her foot)


And she loves playing.

Though about 1/2 an hour after taking this picture she rolled off the ball and busted her lip. Poor baby. She's resting now.

As Elastigirl pointed out, she's quite resilient as we knew she would be. She's been through a lot in her short life. But now, she's spent more of it with us than with anyone else.

GOOOOOOOOOAALLLLLLL!!!!!!!!!!!!

Phoebe had quite a day on the soccer pitch today. She focused on the game, took the ball down the field, made some great passes, and scored a goal!!!

Here she is fighting for the ball and kicking it into the goal.




It was a banner day! Allen and I both got misty-eyed. We're so proud of her.

Opening Day

OK, so opening day of the Spring soccer season was almost a week ago - last Saturday. I'm just a little slow. Here are a few pics from P's game. It was at 1:00 and we expected it to be warm, but the wind changed that. P's team is in a different bracket this season, I think because they had a winning season in the Fall. Anyway, P's team won 8-0 and P had to hold up fingers for every point scored.

Pre-game.

Sharing some warmth.

Jo wondering why she's out in the cold wind (and showing that mommy is so excited about this year's election that she voted early).


P's a bit excited....or cold.

What's that score? I think this was after the next-to-last goal.

Guess Who's Hit the "Terrible Twos"

My oh my, what a temper this child has. Whenever she doesn't get what she wants, she dissolves or erupts (whichever way you want to think of it). Take digging in Mom's office drawer...where the sharp pencils are.

When Mom puts her hand on the drawer, this happens (yes she was actually swinging at my arm and trying to move it):


Mom takes her hand away, and she instantly turns it off.

I can clearly remember when Phoebe was in her terrible twos (from 18 mos to about 4), I told myself, "I will remember this if I ever think of having another child." And I did remember thinking that before we decided to adopt. But I decided that was just part of the bargain.

So, the little miss is 19 months old today and the terrible twos are definitely in full swing.


(Oh, and yes, I got her bangs and the back of her hair trimmed)

Wow!

That's all I can think...wow! A family that is in our October 2005 yahoo group is headed back to China. They went last year a month before we went. You can check it out here.

I'm just awed by this family. I still feel like I'm in survival mode, even though we've been home 9 months today.

Check Out My Etsy Artist of the Week

Bop on over to my Little Shop of Baubles blog and check out my etsy artist of the week!

OK, Really?!

So, Jo likes to climb on the table, huh? Move all the dining chairs away from the table and she can't get on. Problem solved.

Jo likes to climb up onto the desk in the office? Push the office chair all the way in and she can't do it. Problem solved.

Now


Sigh....