Happy 2008

Well, we made it through a wonderful Chrsitmas with our family and had a great 2 weeks off work. We were able to spend a full week at Nana and Papa's house in MI and also a full week here with just each other. It was a wonderful vacation.

1. Addie Mei has started the second semester of preschool going 2 half days a week and she just loves it. She tells me all about what happens at school and she is just blossoming. I was very happy to hear people in MI tell me how much better she is talking and how they understand her so much more. I am with her each day, so I do not see the great progress she is making. I know the socialization at school has been a great benefit to her speech.

I enrolled her in a gymnastics class at the YMCA down here. She LOVES, I mean LOVES, her "nastics" class. She gets so excited when she just sees her little outfit in the closet. No matter her mood on a Wednesday when I pick her up, she instantly changes to a very excited little girl when I tell her it is time to get ready for class. I am so glad I did this. It is really helping her confidence, as well as, her strength. We still struggle with low muscle tone in her core, so this has been a great help. Not only does she have a great time in class, but she also "practices " at home.

Addie Mei very much enjoys doing crafts. She could sit for hours just painting something, over, and over, and over. She is so sweet and quiet. She also really enjoys her new playroom at home. I cleared out pur spare room to give her her own play space, and give me back some of my house. She loves it back there. Someone very generously dropped off a wonderful little plastic house in my driveway. I do not know who left it, but I am so thankful for their generosity. I cleaned it up and set it up in her playroom. It has become a wonderful drivethrough restaraunt. SO cute!

That is all for now. Looking forward to the next little fun thing this girl can bring into my life!!

God Bless,

Tamie

Merry Christmas Everyone

We have had a wonderful Christmas season! Addie Mei is really starting to understand that Jesus came as a baby and that is why we celebrate Christmas. She sings Happy Birthday to Jesus all the time, it is too precious!

We had fun decorating for Christmas Thanksgiving weekend, even though I was miserably sick. We were able to get both trees up and the house all decorated. Addie Mei got to put the Angel on top of her own tree this year. What a big girl. She loves having her tree in her room.

As is our tradition, we took her Christmas pictures in from on my tree. She had some fun doing this, but would have much preferred to be playing. Her picture turned out very cute, though!

We are starting a new tradition this year with having our Christmas together on the Saturday before we leave to go to MI. I want her to be able to have her presents under her tree at home, but we are always going to be in MI for Christmas day. I thought this would be a good plan so she can have a week to play with her toys before we leave. She had fun opening her presents and taking time to play with them.

I included a picture of her opening a blanket, next to a tall wooden wardrobe. The blanket is called a "100 Good Wishes Quilt." It is a Chinese tradition for friends and family to send a piece of fabric to a new mom with a good wish to go with the piece of fabric. Once the blanket is together, the child is wrapped in "100 Good Wishes." The wishes are put in a scrap book with a smaller piece of the fabric. The child then can match the fabric in the quilt to the good wish book and see who sent what wish. I was so happy with how it turned out.

The wooden wardrobe is something I made for her. I am impressed that I was able to do this. It is for her to put all of her dress up clothes on. The shelves below are for her dress up shoes. She loves it! When she is getting dressed in the morning, she likes to make faces at herself in the mirror.

We leave for MI in a couple of days and I know she will be bombarded with more presents. I hope through all of the presents, we will be able to stay mindful of the true reason for the presents, and that is Jesus!

We wish you all a very Merry Christmas!

Tamie and Addie Mei

Snow Fun

Addie Mei has had fun this early winter. She LOVES the snow, or "no" as she calls it. She has asked about when the snow was coming for a few weeks now and I am so happy she has finally gotten some. It worked out very well for me to have been home with her the day the first real snow hit. We went sledding and had hot chocolate. It was so much fun. This cute picture was taken by a friend who watches her one day a week for me. It shows her love for this white stuff.

We will be heading to MI for Christmas with our family. Addie Mei and I will have our Christmas together at home next week. We hope you have a wonderful Christmas.

Look out, here comes Snow White!!

Here is my "Little Princess," Snow White. She went trick or treating with her best buddy, Drew. They were too cute. They managed our entire street and both carried their heavy pumpkins loaded with candy the whole way!! I have some cute footage of them BANGING on the doors yelling Trick or Treat. Not bad for their first time out! I think we are going to really like Halloween!

I have bangs!!

This is for the family who have been anxiously awaiting the pictures of Addie Mei with bangs! She loves them, and I love them! It makes doing her hair and keeping it out of her face MUCH easier!

Eventful last couple of weeks

Addie Mei and I have had a crazy last couple of weeks. Our first order of excitment was for her to choke on a nickel she found in the car. I heard it clank on her teeth, I turn around to tell her to take it out of her mouth and I see she is not breathing. I was driving at the time and had to think fast, so I just hit her chest 3 times and she started to cry. Praise God! It took a few more minutes for her to quit actively choking on it. We got to the doctors and they sent us to the ER to try to have it removed as it was still pretty high in her throat on the x-ray. By the time we got to the ER, it had traveled to her stomach. I had to search for it on the other end for the next 4 days. She flushed once before I could search and it was in that one flush that the thing must have come out. I had her x-rayed again and it was gone!!

We went to Chicago with a group of friends from church to visit Chinatown. That was a lot of fun. I plan to bring her there for her 5th Gotcha Day Anniversary. I hope to have my family come, but that is a few years away yet. We had fun and I really enjoyed eating at a Chinese style restaurant. This was the first thing I missed when I returned home form China. It was nice to experience it again!!

We went to a corn maze with Aunt Debbie in Southern IN. It was 91 dgrees, but we still had fun. It was so nice to see Aunt Debbie down here. Addie Mei loves going into the spare room and waking anyone that is sleeping in there. Too cute.....

Our last fun was going to the Pumpkin Patch with our freinds. The kids all played so well and had a blast picking out pumpkins and rolling them at each other. We had a good time then we went to dinner together. Addie Mei has been blessed with so many wonderful people in her life. She is doing so great and maturing into a sweet little girl!

I am going to try to put some pictures on some of the posts from her Babysites entries. It may take me some time though. Have a great day!

New Blogspot

I have decided to put together a blogspot in place of our Babysites account. I hope this blogspot will work well for those who continue to follow along with us. Happy reading to those who are new to our journey!!

Tamie