Happy Birthday PaPa

We celebrated my dad's birthday yesterday at my folks house. As usual the house was vibrating and shaking with energy! It paled to the energy when the Illinios cousins were visiting but still a big time and a great day with my dad. Happy Birthday Pop!! My mom cooked up another amazing meal and we all feasted on cake and ice cream as well! You'll notice Jia was not in the best of moods during the photo ops. She hates to sit at a table and eat. It makes her (and thus the mom) crazy to be restricted to one place for any reason! Very typical 2 year old in some ways - and amazingly above the curve for a 2 year old in many, many other ways. She is having a vocabulary burst and is talking up a storm. She continues to understand things we say that absolute amaze us. Her ability to follow multistep requests astounds even the most seasoned parents!

Here a few pics of the day. I still need to get posts up detailing the Illinios clan visit and our trip to the beach and I'll get to them soon. We've been having some computer issues with the laptop I use to do my blogging but my ever talented husband has it all fixed up! All it took was my mentioning that I was going to get onto Amazon and order a new one and presto, change-o - the computer was fixed!! Terrell does SO much around here that it wasn't a matter of ignoring the issue or being disinterested - I just had to get it moved up on the list of priorities. Threatening to pull out the ol' credit card shot the computer issues up to first place! Heh. Anyway - we're on countdown to vacation and we're all very excited. But first we have to get through some very busy work weeks. Speaking of which - I need to get back to it!

Summer is Awesome!

Jia has been having tons of fun this summer going to the pool and hanging out all day with her cousins. LaLa has an amazing amount of energy to take that brood to the pool but Jia is always so happy when I pick her up. She's changing so much every day and is such a very happy little girl! She has now taken to carrying around her "bankie" which started out as a slept in t-shirt belonging to her dad. It's still her daddy's t-shirt but at least now she's willing to accept a newly laundered one as well! She must have it at all times. It's really sweet (and a little hard for the mom - knowing she uses it to provide comfort because she misses us) but that is a very normal and desirable developmental stage. We are all most certainly bonded as a family! She is getting so much from her daddy these days. As with most kiddos, for a long time, she wanted and would only take mommy when she needed comfort. But now the dad rules and she loves being with him. It's all falling into place and she continues to grow and expand her abilities at what seems like lightning speed. She's communicating very well now too. No full sentences but she can clearly get her point across. She even said "do it myself" one night in the bath when I was obviously overstepping my bounds by pouring water from her little watering can into the flower pot! Jia turned 2 in June and she has just continued to amaze us with her speech and growth everyday. The IL cousins and Aunt and Uncle were just in town as well and that kicked the fun up even more! We visited the beach for the first time since Jia came home and that can be a post all on its own! I have tons of pictures to share of a lot of summer fun! Hope all is well with all of our friends out there and I hope your summer is full of fun too!

There's No Better Time than PaPa Time!

I think these pics say a thousand words! Jia had so much fun hanging out and playing with her grandfather who she lovingly has named PaPa. She giggled and teased and down right fell to the floor laughing with him. As I've mentioned many times on this blog, I am so very lucky to have him as my dad and now Jia gets to enjoy him as her grandfather!

Happy 4th to All!

At the Zoo with the Dad

Here are a couple of pics of Jia at the zoo with her dad. They had a wonderful time! The one picture makes it seem that Jia was a bit unsure of the giraffe ( I think I would have been!) but Terrell said no, she actually would put a few pieces of kibble in her hand and call out for the giraffe to take it from her! Which he did! Hope you're all have a great summer. I'll try to get posts out a bit more frequently.

Thank You Honorary Aunt Cindy - The Cow Rocks!

Fun with Dad

Not much time to post these days between Jia being sick, me being sick, work being crazy and life being generally over the top busy but I wanted to take a moment to post a few great shots of Jia and Jia with her dad. Talking about being sick though, I've never been sick so often in my life and it's tough. Juggling a 2 year old who is sick and consequently sneezes and coughs into my mouth knowing that the evil illness is now only days away from taking me down is just part of being a mom - I know this. I worry so much about Jia when she's sick - she's really only been scary sick 3 times in the past 13 months. But she was scary sick this time (all is well now so no worries) and then I got scary sick. I'm on the mend but oh my. Oh the fun cycles. But hopefully I'm building a fortress of an immune system toward childhood crud and soon I'll be able to better battle the germs.

These pictures are of us just hanging around the house. Some girlfriends gave me some silly martini/margarita sunglasses a few years back and Jia found them crammed away in a drawer. She loves to put them on her daddy and wear them herself. She also gets a kick out of eating with her dad. You can see the spaghetti fest from a week or two ago. Those shorts of T's will never be the same. Our dog Nora always has to have her nose in close by just in case a stray noodle comes flying her way.

Anyway, enjoy the pics. She gets more beautiful everyday. Our little beauty turns 2 on Tuesday! I just can't believe it!!

Natural Sailor

We had our first boating adventure of the season last weekend. We didn't actually sail - just stayed in the slip and let Jia get accustomed to the boat. (Thus no PFDs in the pics.) Exhausting for the parents - but pure fun for Jia! We're in for a heck of a season. Her daddy has found a natural sailing partner (whereas with the mom - not so much). Sorry for the delay in posts - life is, well, overwhelmingly busy at times. But very, very good!

One Year

Today marks the one year anniversary of the day we became a family. The day all of the stars aligned and all of the dreams and hopes became a reality. I've told Jia twice today the significance of the day and how very happy she makes us. She doesn't quite understand just yet but I so hope that when she does she can absorb the magnitude of the day and how very happy and lucky her parents are to have her as a daughter. We love you Jia - more than I thought possible to love another human. She's got us, and she's got us good. Thank you from the deepest part of my being to her birth mom and dad for making the most difficult decision imaginable in order to best love their daughter. And thank you China for allowing us to be her mom and dad.

Some Pictures From Guangzhou

More Random Pictures From Hong Kong

1st Anniversery of Trip to China

I was going to title this post "First Anniversery of the Nightmare Plane Adventure to China" but there is no way the trip to China, no matter how miserable that 16 hour flight may have been, could be considered a nightmare. It resulted in the most incredible event of our lives. One year ago today Terrell, I and my mother boarded a plane here in our little East Coast town and connected to Newark for the 16 hour flight to Hong Kong. Those of you who have been around for a while will remember my post from Hong Kong wherein I indicated I had "freaked out" 8 hours into the flight and Terrell thought that might be an excellent time to pull out the video camera. Luckily for him, I've never seen that footage. My mom and I have been reminescing about the flight the past couple of days. We were beyond shocked with the reality of a 16 hour flight. You say the words but the reality is far different. That plane got so small even though it was a gigantic 777. As my mom said, how the heck does something that big stay in the air THAT long??? My dad watched our entire flight path on-line and he knew the minute we had landed in Hong Kong. Oh, what a relief we felt to finally get off of that plane. Yes, we had been awake and traveling for 24 hours and we were in a country half way across the world. But we were on solid ground and all we needed to do was navigate the airport, find money, figure out how to get a cab and arrive at our hotel 30 minutes away. Not to mention we were only 3 magical days away from our daughter. I can't believe it's been an entire year. These are pictures of us on the plane, landing, just off of the plane and from our hotel. Terrell said "Wow, that is a rough picture of you, it doesn't even look like you" - well, it did at the time. ( And who was he at the time? Hugh Jackman?) A year later I feel all warm and fuzzy about this trip!

I need to add a little extra something to this post. Most moms, if they can be, are there for the birth of their grandchildren. When I asked my mom if she wanted to go to China because she would provide me much comfort and I didn't know how the hell to be a new mom, she said yes. She added that she had been present for the birth or soon thereafter the birth of each of her kid's first children and this would be no different. But this was a bit different. She traveled across the world with me to get my daughter. That is freaking amazing if you ask me. Thank you mom.