Apple Festival

Today we attended the 29th Annual Apple Festival at the Old Prairie Town. While it didn't turn out to be exactly what we expected, we did have a good time. We met up with another adoptive mom who was accompanied by her neice and her princess from China. Her little girl is 15 months old and a real cutie pie! Our girls LOVE babies and even Daddy got in on the fun!

The girls helped make apple cider with an old fashioned cider press, listen to a mountain man tell his story and help a blacksmith drill holes in wood the fun way. Here are some photos of the day!

The mountain man sure held the kids attention. He warned them that he was going to holler the mountain man way....then warned them they better "hold their noses!" All the kids did just that...held their noses...then rapidly switched to holding their ears when he yelled!

Even though he won't admit it.....I think he likes holding Chinese baby girls!!!

Pumpkin Patch

We traveled to Augusta yesterday to meet up with some of our friends at the Applejack Pumpkin Patch. We also met with our social worker to do our final post placement report!

Even though it was really windy, the girls had a great time! There were many things to keep the girls entertained and completely exhaust them! Three of them slept the two hour drive back home! Here are some great photos of the day!!

Our Sugar Cookie

Kendalan is our pure sugar cookie! I have been telling her Daddy that this darling is going to be so spoiled by the time she starts school in a couple of years. Daddy was all excited to sign her up for pre-school, that is until he found out that it was $126/week! I don't think that she will be needing too much to have her ready to start Kindergarten in a couple of years anyway. These are some of the conversations that she and I have had lately.


Mom, do you know what a chrysalis is? Thankfully I do have a clue, however I am somewhat amazed that she would know! I tell her, "Yes, I know what a chrysalis is." I then ask her what happens to a chrysalis? She says, "A beautiful butterfly comes out of it." She then adds, "A chrysalis is like a sleeping bag." Poof! You can blow me over with a feather!


We also visited about colors. She is a sharpie when it comes to colors. You really can't pull one over on her. So our conversation went something like this. "Mommy, what are your favorite colors?" I tell her that I really don't have one favorite color, I like most of the colors of the rainbow. She then starts asking me about each individual color. "Do you like red?" I reply, "Yes." "How about blue?" "Yellow?" She then says, "Do you like violet?" I say, "Yes, I like violet, what color is violet?" She says, "Oh you know Mom, a kind of purple." Yikes!


So we take off to run errands yesterday. As I am strapping her in her car seat she says, "Oh Mommy, I forgot my sunglasses!" So I tell her to sit still, I will go get them for her. These photos are of her giving me the sweetest smiles after I handed them to her and she put them on. She likes to wear them in the car, "So I can see better." We stop at a shoe store. She is still wearing her shades in the store. Two of the women working there come over and tell her that she is looking pretty good in her sunglasses. (Duh! Of course she knows it!) She smiles sweetly at them. The one woman asks me what nationality she is. I say Chinese. The woman says, "With the sunglasses on, she looks Philipino." She then asks Kendalan to let her see her eyes. Of course Kendalan obliges and very matter of factly pulls her sunglasses down just a hair and peeks over the top of them at the woman. The woman says, "What beautiful eyes you have!" Kendalan says, "I know." as she puts her shades back on!!


Oh, I can't wait for the teen years!!

Nice weather=park

Since Daddy was attending a car show this weekend, the girls and I attended to the important things in life. Okay...so not the whole weekend! But today we decided to go ride the merry-go-round in the park and the train. Of course, the girls spent plenty of time playing on the equipment too! Here are some photos of the day. BTW, they have the Wizard of Oz cut outs by the carousel, the girls had a great time "trying" the different characters on!!

Happy 6th Birthday Jordis Li Meng!!

Mmmmmmmm.....this is yummy!!!!

Her cuddle/100 Good Wishes quilt.

The Birthday Girl

When we first saw her photo in February 2007 we had hoped to celebrate her fifth birthday with her, but that was not to be. So one year ago, we sang Happy Birthday to Jordis and we kept her close in our thoughts.

Today we celebrated Jordis Li Meng's 6th birthday! When asked if she ever celebrated her birthday in China she said, "I don't think so, I don't remember." So we started off the day with Happy Birthday wishes and continued throughout the day. She was confused at first about why we would wish her Happy Birthday more than once. We explained to her that the whole day was HER birthday and we were glad she is here with her family so we can celebrate. She decided that was a good idea!

Our neighbor friend, Paige, came over and spent the day with the girls. Jordis picked "China food" only not in China" for her birthday meal. Off to Panda Express for a late afternoon meal. Then back home and we sang again, Jordis made a wish and opened her presents! She was SO careful not to tear the paper on the gifts. Her sister's patience finally forced her to tear them open! I think that the look on her face was priceless!

Here are a couple of younger photos we have of her. Unfortunately, the only baby photo we have of her is a very small, grainy black and white one. We are lucky to have some of her when she was a toddler. We missed part of her childhood, but we are making up for lost time. She is a great daughter/sister and we are SO HAPPY to have her here!!! Happy Birthday Sweetie!!!

The Tooth Fairy~~Again!

Friday was school photo time. Since I had to work and the girls wanted Mommy to do their hair, I was up 30 minutes earlier than usual. I rousted the girls out of bed at 5:30 am. Last year at school picture time Daddy was in charge. Things weren't too bad, but I did notice right away that ZoraLin's shirt was on backward in her photo! Oops!

ZoraLin has had a loose front tooth for a couple of weeks now. I just knew that it was going to be missing for her 1st grade photo. When it didn't fall out, but was hanging kind of sideways in her mouth, her Daddy and I both tried to help it along. That tooth was bound determined to stay put! We hope that the kids weren't calling her Snaggle Tooth!

This morning Zora ran into our bedroom at 7AM! The tooth is Gone!! And we can't find it anywhere! We suspect that she swallowed it in her sleep. Fortunately, the Tooth Fairy "knew" that she was going to lose a tooth, so there will be a visit to our house tonight even without a tooth. Besides, I really don't like the idea of trying to find this tooth when it passes through!!

Dance Baby Dance!

Yes! We finally have the girls in dance classes! I have talked about this for a long time and the opportunity was here for the taking! Jordis Li and Kendalan take dance from 6:00 to 6:45 p.m. ZoraLin is in tumbling from 6:45 to 7:30 p.m. and RaeAnne finishes the night from 7:30 to 8:15 p.m. The classes are very close to home and after the first night of class, the girls were SO excited! They will have a dance recital in May and RaeAnne's class will perform in a couple of weeks! I didn't get much of a chance to snap photos the first night, but here are a couple. Kendalan and Jordis were support for each other in the little girl class. ZoraLin learns to balance on her head and knees!!