Christmas Eve

As many of you know, my dad passed away this past June so this was our first Christmas without him. We decided to get together at my parents' house (which is now my sister's house) this year. It was all decorated for Christmas, thanks to my sister Amanda, and it really felt nice. My dad hadn't done much decorating since my mom died four years ago and wouldn't really let us do much either so it was great seeing the house all lit up : )


My nephew wanted a talking parrot from Cracker Barrel. Ok, silly yes but we got it for him. Annslee LOVED it. As you can tell from the collage below she wanted it and threw a fit until he agreed to share with her!



There are six kids in my family and here are four with their families : ) We missed our sisters in Florida...maybe next year.



Now that there are a lot of kids in the family again it is so much more fun at gift time! Lots of noise and paper..I love it.



As per our Christmas Eve tradition..here is Annslee opening her Christmas ornament (Barney of course) and her new PJs. Dada also got Mama a pair of new ones : )



When we got home she had on her new PJs, hung her ornament on the tree and put out a treat for Santa. Then off to bed...

She is spoiled

If you remember after the Santa trauma she went down to Build A Bear to calm down. She fell in love with the dog on skates and lucky for her our good friends gave her a gift card to Build A Bear so off we went back to the mall. Yes, it is two days before Christmas...but hey, it made her happy : )






Afterwards, to make Mama happy, we had Mexican..you can tell she is very interested in the cooking process.

A little late but here goes

Here are Annslee's school photos. They were taken last month but I just had them put on a CD when I did her Santa one. Better late than never I suppose..see she can smile for a photographer sometimes!

We Saw Santa!! (updated)

As promised..here is her photo with Santa..hmmm, guess we won't tell her he is coming to our house tomorrow night..she might not sleep at all!! Luckily all of our post placements are done so our Social Worker won't see this photo!!



For those of you who did not see last year's photo or if you just want to see it again..here it is. As you can see, not much has changed : )





Here are photos of last year and this year...leading up to the big event!! I will post the outcome when I get it scanned...stay tuned!

Here she is ready to go in December '05



Today she waved to him and pointed to her dog shirt that she wanted to show him. I am hoping this shirt doesn't turn out like the cat shirt at Halloween!




After Santa we went to Build a Bear and she had a great time.





Then we had to ride the fire engine of course

2006: The Year in Review

I snagged this idea from Nicki’s blog..snag it from me if you like. You take the first sentence from the first post of the month and you have your year in review. Of course I didn’t start the blog until July so I went back to Annslee’s first website for January thru June. So here is our year in review. Enjoy!

• Annslee has had a few milestones met in the last few days.

• Well, the whole family was in town and she looked beautiful.

• Today I went back to work and Annslee went to daycare.

• We went to Charlotte for an early Easter celebration with the family.

• We had our 6 month post placement visit with our social worker today.

• Well, Annslee is 20 months old today and we had to go to the doctor.

• Annslee spent her first 4th of July as a US Citizen and she had a great time.

• Annslee's daycare was closed this week so GiGi made the trip up to stay with her.

• One year ago today I got the call that would change our lives forever.

• Well, it was bound to happen, Little Miss Independent has decided to take over the blog.

• When Annslee was picked up from daycare we learned she was dry all day!!!

• I know you will all find this hard to believe but we ventured down to Athens, GA this weekend and it wasn't even a game day!

At least I tried

I tried to take some photos of her decorating the tree and also have the lights showing. Well, I need to find out how to do a better job but they are still pretty sweet : )

Christmas Program & Tree Trimming

Annslee had her program at school last night and she was so cute!! She cried when we got there, I guess she thought we were leaving her there but then once she got on stage she was a little ham. They sang "Mary Had a Baby Boy" and her beloved "I Love You..the Barney Song"

(you can click on the collages to make them bigger)

The best part was once they got on stage she saw me and started pointing and yelling MAMA!! She did it a few times during the show..too cute.



Once we got home I asked her if I could take a few pictures of her in front of the tree..below is her response : )

Shopping..but still no Santa

We went to the mall and did some shopping on Saturday. Annslee rode the train and then slept while I finished doing some Christmas stuff (mainly locating a Barney ornament for her..sshh don't tell) We saw Santa, we waved at Santa but we did not sit on his lap. She wasn't really dressed for it anyway. Then we came home and later had a tea party : )

She wore her cat ears for the party but Mocha was not interested in joining us.

Dada and Applesauce

Well, Dada got out the camera to try a few things and Annslee was more than willing to help him out as she ate her applesauce (she eats it every night). Speaking of applesauce..this is our constant nightly battle. The minute we get to the table she starts chanting apple over and over. We have to convince her that she must eat dinner first. Now I will admit that she isn't missing many meals so it probably doesn't matter. I took her to the doctor for her flu shot booster and in 7 weeks she had gained 1 lb,2 oz and 3/4 of an inch! Her current stats at 26 months-- 29 pounds and 33.25 inches.

Christmas in Charlotte

We headed to Charlotte for Christmas and as you can see the girls had so much fun playing together! GiGi was a great hostess as usual and we all just got to enjoy each other's company.

Payton and Annslee had a great time playing together. It is so much fun to watch them having fun. Payton is trying to teach Annslee how to be a good big sister.




GiGi and Annslee had fun playing with Zoe. She would chase the two of them all around while Annslee squealed!



On Sunday Dada went to the Panthers game and we headed to Payton and Taylor's house to play. The weather was great so we spent some time outside as well as in their bonus room.

Our travelmates Lolly and Molly came over for a visit. We haven't seen them since China last November so it was so wonderful seeing the girls together again.

The big girls ran on the trampoline while the little ones sat in the middle being "popcorn" I love the look on Annslee's face in the first photo!



What a sweet cousin photo





Nothing like three girls on a slide...what fun


Finally to cap off the celebration we headed to Aunt Anne's house. Annslee got to meet her grandaddy for the first time. They hit it off immediately. She also got to see her cousin Mari and they had such a fun time playing but she especially loved riding in the Jeep.

FCC Christmas Party

We went to the annual FCC (Families with Children from China) Christmas party and had a great time. There were crafts to make, food to eat and a lot of happy little ones running around. It is always nice to see all the new babies who have just come home in the last year and see how much all the kides have grown. Next year we will have two girls to keep up with!




Santa was there and Annslee was very excited to see him. However, when it came time to sit on his lap she thought it would be better if Mama went along. Poor Santa had to have me sit on him but he was very kind and didn't complain.



I realize I am terribly biased but she just takes my breath away sometimes. We are so blessed to have her for a daughter.



A bench and a water fountain..what else does a girl need for a good time!

Is someone trying to tell me something??

As you know we went to Athens to visit friends last weekend. Well, we ate at this great noodle place and of course got fortune cookies. Annslee ate all of them but we all got our own fortunes. They are as follows..

Daddy: That special someone may simply be waiting for you.

Mama: Travel is in your future.

Annslee: You will travel to many exotic places

Can anyone think of what this might be about?? : )
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Here are a few more photos from our weekend in Georgia...









On our way home from Athens we met up with our other travelmates and Lauren and Annslee got to spend some time together!

A visit with friends

"The Supreme happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved" ~ Victor Hugo


I know you will all find this hard to believe but we ventured down to Athens, GA this weekend and it wasn't even a game day! Last year we were lucky enough to travel to China with some really great people. Two of them live in Athens and we went down to visit with them and their beautiful daughter, Lily. We had a great time and it was so much fun watching the girls play together. Hopefully sometime in the spring/summer we will all be travelling together again..this time to Vietnam to get Malia and Grace. I left the memory card for my camera at home (I know..gasp...) but luckily Debbie took tons of photos (225 to be exact) and so thanks to her I have all the ones below!


So apparently if you didn't graduate from UGA you aren't supposed to stand under the arch on campus. Well, we are such rebels aren't we!



As usual our many attempts at a family photo was difficult. It really is difficult to get all three of us looking and then for us all to be smiling it is almost impossible. I can't imagine how much more fun this will be with four of us.

There were some beautiful spots on campus for the girls to play in the leaves. They were so cute holding hands and just enjoying each other's company. It was funny because Lily would call Annslee "baby" and she is three months younger : )

Mama enjoying some smooches from my girl.

Nothing like a girlfriend to share secrets with. I am sure in the years to come they will have lots of them to share and lots of giggles to go along.

The girls got along really well (except when they wanted the same toy of course) and that is good since they will be having to entertain each other on a 14 hour flight to Vietnam soon!