8 month update

We have been home now for 8 months. We are still seeing wonderful progress with Chelsee's adjustment to her new life but for the most part, all is basically normal and happy for her....which I think is really the most amazing part! To see her go to school every day, learning by leaps and bounds, tease her sister, cry when hurt and search out comfort from her mom, make jokes that are honestly funny, correct us on our English (and Chinese), insist she is old enough for gum and especially to thank us for all we have given her.....it just seems unfathomable and miraculous to have only been with this child for 8 months! So I lay my head down each night with a special note of thanks to God for putting us together...I am witnessing a miracle!

So, we have kept busy to say the least. We go out of town quite a few weekends a month for Julee's soccer and Chelsee does very well. She enjoys the car rides for the most part and has endeared herself to all the soccer moms on the sidelines! She has pretty much just assigned herself the role of mascot and no one seems to object!! She is developing a sweet tooth which I so tried to avoid but she is still eating beautifully and LOTS!! She has even gained weight, yahoo! One day, I think she will make it on to the American charts!

We recently took a wonderful vacation to Disney World. It had been 5 years since our last visit and we all were anxiously awaiting this trip to introduce Chelsee to all things Disney! She LOVED it and so did we! I absolutely loved seeing my precious Julee take her little sister's hand and show her all the princesses, rides, attractions, etc! Finally, I thought, my dream of Julee having a little sister to love, teach and share life has come true! Al and I were sitting at the Shamu Theater in SeaWorld just out of the "soak zone" and I looked down about 10 rows to see Julee showing Chelsee the magnificent whales and taking off her top to reveal her bathing suit so she could get wet when Shamu came by! Julee is a wonderful, wonderful big sister! I am still pinching myself that all our hard work and patience and faith in our efforts to complete our family has paid off, in a huge way.



We visited EPCOT (had lunch in China of course), SeaWorld and the Magic Kingdom. Each is better than the next and we thoroughly enjoyed all that we did. We stayed at the gorgeous Marriott Grande Vista Vacation Club courtesy of Al! That was a treat all by itself. We will be going back - soon, I hope!! If you'd like to take a look at half of the pictures I took, click on the link below:

http://www2.snapfish.com/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=2452830009/a=56965061_56965061/otsc=SHR/otsi=SALBlink/COBRAND_NAME=snapfish/



Another new and exciting event in Chelsee's life was her first Halloween! I kept imagining what she would think about dressing up in a costume, taking a pumpkin looking bag up to a stranger's door at night and saying "Trick or Treat" to get some candy! ALL of those concepts were new and strange to her! NOT A PROBLEM! Haha, she took to it like...drumroll...a kid takes to candy!! That was ALOT of fun for her...her eyes were wide in disbelief that she could score candy this way and be out in the dark and walking around! She keeps telling me she LOVES this life here with her family! She tells me she likes it much more than China! Good thing, I guess! Chelsee chose to be Kai-Lan for Halloween. Kai-Lan is Nick, Jr's newest animated play-along series featuring a Chinese girl and all her friends. Chelsee identified with Kai-Lan early on and we all have learned more Chinese from the behind the scenes curriculum on the show. But since the show is relatively new (2008) and not nearly as popular as say, Dora the Explorer or SpongeBob, the pre-made Kai-Lan Halloween costumes were pretty lame. Lame enough for even me not to purchase! Target and some other stores have started carrying some Kai-Lan items, but it was up to me to come up with a costume for Chelsee. We all know I do NOT sew nor do I want to! I love ordering online and using coupons for things like this!! But there I was at Michael's picking out fabric paint and searching 3 stores for just the right blue colored shirt to decorate. I printed out 2 different pictures of Kai-Lan's clothes and took about 2 weeks to complete just the shirt! Luckily we had some orange shorts for her to wear on the bottom! Kai-Lan wears her hair in 2 half pony tails with a red flower in each pony. You try finding red flower pony tail holders! There are blues, blacks, yellows, greens, chartreuse, magenta, pink, neon orange but NO red. I was now on a mission....and at a going out of business party shop on the way to Charleston, I stumbled upon a Spanish Fiesta party package that had some yellow and red flower looking pony tail holders....they would have to do! And they did, they looked great! Here is proof!


















And yes, while I was being all creative and crafty, I also created the felt Thing 1 and Thing 2 logos for Julee and Lydia's costumes. Tricia was responsible for the red outfits, blue hair and white face makeup...Don't they look great? Here is to next year's store bought costumes!