FCC Playgroup

Today was our montly FCC Playgroup outing and it was at the Zoo this time. We arrived and the weather was beautiful! Only two of us showed up today but we had a great time. We hadn't seen Amelia and Jack in a while so it was fun catching up with them : ) As soon as Annslee saw them she did her 'friends' sign and was all about Amelia for the rest of the day.

Hey Mister Stork could you please bring me my baby sister!!

Of course a huge hug from Annslee is a must have!!

Before we left for the day we had to go to the bouncy area. Seriously, they ran across and jumped off at least 50 times!!

Yes, it wore her out and she slept on the way home and is sleeping now : )

Dear N*F*L

it is ridiculous that my 2 year old needs a ticket to attend a game. I just don't think we could pass her off as a 23 month old LOL We have 4 season tickets but had already sold two of them to this game so we headed downtown to see if we could grab a cheap one for Miss Annslee. Well, I guess since we were playing the Sup*er Bowl champs and since we won last weekend, cheap tickets were not to be had. We sold our two and came back home to watch.






Don't worry we won't be missing any more games..it is just difficult with 4 tickets to find one person who wants to go with the 3 of us. Hurry home Malia...we have a ticket with your name on it!!

Birthday and Yard Sale

Did someone say birthday party?? Sounds fun to me!

We went to eat pizza with the cousins for Shelby's birthday and Miss Annslee thought everyone deserved a huge HUG!

These 25 cent bouncy balls were great entertainment : )

Hugs for the birthday girl

We had our neighborhood yard sale today and Annslee thought reading the paper with Daddy was fun. The ice cream truck came by (at 10 am!!) and she really thought that was great!!!

Fun with the Zs

We went to gymnastics today and then over to visit our travelmates and friends. Annslee loved playing with Zola (who was in our China group) and Zara (her oldest sister) but today she and Zena really hit it off! The girls are beautiful and mom is such a great hostess!

The dress up trunk was a big hit.Here is their group picture and they were all pretending to be cold : )




Of course Zola grabbed the purple dress and Annslee wanted to fight her for it.


Ok..pink is fine as long as I have wings!!







It is hard to see but she is doing the sign for 'friends'




Zena came to sit but Zara jumped in...Annslee was not amused






Zena was sneaking up on Princess Annslee and being a rabbit : )

This is a record ~

six weeks since our last trip to the Zoo!! We got up this morning and there was a chill in the air and I knew we had to be outside! I checked the weather and the high was only going to be in the low 80's so we packed up and headed out.

She always wants butterflies to land on her hand but she never gets them to. Yesterday I did get a ladybug to walk down her arm and onto her hand and then it flew away...she was thrilled! Here is a butterfly she tried to coax today but no such luck so I took a picture of it for her : )

I think the t-shirt says it all!!



There is an episode of Won*der Pets where a baby Panda is stuck in a bamboo tree with a belly ache. She is looking to see if one is here at the Zoo so she could save it. Maybe if she tried the telescope she could see one LOL

Here he is...the favorite clouded leopard~and yes, she had baby Cloudy along to see him

We did make it to the Rain Room and she enjoyed it as usual

We definitely won't wait 6 weeks to go again!

Mama is a Princess

We went over to Mia's house to play the other night and the girls loved sweeping and mopping..of course they won't in a few years when they could really help. We kept singing "Cinderelly" to them

Cinder*ella was on my mind because we had just left a store earlier that day where she purchased a Cindy dress (well, I did). No, it was NOT the Dis*ney store because I was not ready to pay the $79.50 price tag. You need to know that I may have paid that just because my sweet girl has decided that I am Cinder*ella. Yes, we had a couple of different dresses to choose from and I kept leaning towards other ones b/c I thought they were cuter but she was adamant that she had to have the Cindy one saying "My Mama" over and over : ) Any time she sees her she calls her Mama.



*I finally found out the reason, according to her...we both have yellow hair LOL

In another "look-a-like" moment she decided to dress like her baby : )

** since a few people asked-- her baby is Sonya Lee one of the Little People from Fisher Price : )

Wanna help my friends??

Some of our friends and travelmates are doing the Boston Marathon! Yep, you read that correctly! Annslee and their daughter JiaLi were in the same SWI and we spent over 2 of the most important weeks of our lives in China together.

Here is the email I received from them tonight:

Hello Everyone,

First I hope this email finds you well. Second, I normally don't send emails like this. However, this cause is special and important to me. Each of us in some way or another has been touched by this terrible disease. Michelle has been walking the Jimmy Fund Boston Marathon fund raising walk for the past NINE years!!! I have decided this year to join her in this important and ambitious fundraising event, (hopefully I survive).

We have decided to do this together and Danny has asked to join in the walking. So, we are walking to help beat this terrible disease. The details, On Sunday, Sept. 16 2007, we will join more than 7,000 walkers in the 19th Annual Boston Marathon Jimmy Fund Walk. The event has a fundraising goal of $6 million to help find better ways to treat and prevent cancer in children and adults.

This is a nasty, nasty disease that touches everyone. You don't have to think too hard to come up with someone close that has been fighting or has passed away because of this disease. Please help fight this awful disease. Donate what you can, every little bit helps. To make it easy, you can donate on line by linking to the site right from here: Team Fran

I hope you will support our efforts by contributing to this very worthy cause. Your generous gift enables Dana-Farber Cancer Institute to provide compassionate care while continuing its research to improve the chances of survival for cancer patients worldwide. By supporting our walk, you are helping to end cancer.

Sincerely and Thankfully,

Joe

If you would like to support their cause and help wipe out cancer you can go here to donate or go to their family website on my sidebar. As some of you may or may not know, I lost my dad to cancer last year and my grandmother to it six years ago so it is a cause close to my heart.

Not for my SW

Luckily all our post placement reports are finished, otherwise we might be in trouble. She got out these plastic wine glasses and had a great time with them. Hey, notice in a few she is counting them and holding up a four so maybe it was a little educational!


*I usually don't put this many in a collage so you may need to enlarge by clicking on it and yes these were taken the same day as gymnastics..she has more than one outfit LOL

Another thing they don't like to see is animals in the pictures so I guess this one would not have worked either. She loves to have Sasha sleep with her but I am not sure the dog feels the same!

My little gymnast

Today we went to our first class and to say she had a blast would be a huge understatement. When we walked in her eyes lit up and she literally squealed with joy!! She ran straight for the trampoline and loved jumping and falling down and bouncing back up.

I thought she was going to spend all of her "free play" time on the trampoline but then she spotted the monkey bars! She got on the rails all by herself and was able to get across about three rails before falling. I was really impressed with her upper body strength. Of course she then wanted to swing her legs up and try dangling upside down....great ; )

During the session times she got to walk across bars like a bear, do a head stand and of course flips!!

I knew she would enjoy all the tumbling, climbing and jumping but I was totally thrilled at how well she did during circle time and taking turns with the other kids. I really loved watching her cheer for the other kids when they took their turn.

We can't wait until our next time.

Our referral weekend tradition continues....

For the third year in a row we spent our referral weekend celebrating with Mia's family. When they arrrived of course Annslee tackled Mia!

We had planned on going down to the pool but we adults opted to hang out at the house and let them just play in the front yard. We went outside to set up the pool, water table and sprinkler and the girls watched anxiously from inside. Annslee has 3 of her much loved orange pillows and she let Mia hold one of them...a huge step for her!!

They had a blast just playing in the water.

We came inside and ate then it was time for ice cream. As you can see they really wanted that freezer open so they could get to it : ) They also enjoyed playing upstairs and then 'pretending' to be asleep. We can't wait to keep this tradition going...the girls really do have such a great time together...and so do we

Here is a picture of the girls from last year (Sept.2006)

Go here to see more of the girls together last year.

Just for your viewing pleasure here we are 2 years ago holding the pictures we had just received...we look more rested but we certainly weren't having as much fun!

Two years ago today

I was sitting at my desk at work and stalking the boards...the first referral came in but not as far out as my LID so I still had to wait (we didn't have RQ back then)....oh my gosh, what a wonderful day!!! Last year I wrote about the one year anniversary of our referral and included journal entries from the actual day..go here to read that. I promise it is worth reading so you can see how crazy I was that day wondering if my LID would be included! This was back when they were doing a month at a time and so it covered January 26 through February 27...yep, left off one day in February. I remember my DTC Lovebugs group being so upset about that. We had so many with a Feb 28 LID and it was hard for them and for those of us who were sad for them. I cannot imagine how it is now with only days at a time referred. I know I was amazed to realize that our gotcha day (11/14/05) was just in this last batch of referrals!

I will put one thing I wrote 2 years ago here for all my waiting mommy friends. This is what I wrote about looking at our referral packet after it arrived. I just want you all to know it WILL happen for you : )

He got home and with shaking hands and anxious hearts we tore it open and there you were!!! We stared at your face because it was absolutely beautiful. In that sweet moment all the paperwork, struggles and months of waiting disappeared. We were getting the first glimpse of our precious baby girl : )There was also a lot of paperwork in the package with details about you! Most of it was in Mandarin so I knew I would need to take it to our neighbor Jenny to translate. I grabbed the Acceptance document and Daddy and I signed it immediately. There was no question on that one..you were OURS and we were one step closer to bringing you home.

As many other parents do, we take a photo of Annslee on our referral anniversary holding her referral photo (she was 6 months old in her referral pic)

Here she is on the one year anniversary. If you click on this link it will take you to all the pictures in last year's photo session : )

September 1, 2006



Here is our photo session from today....she is growing up so fast!








Seeing her face for the first time was so incredible and then having to wait 10 weeks to travel was torture. It seems like she has been with us forever and we cannot even remember what we did before having her in our arms. She is everything we wished, hoped and prayed for in a daughter.

We love you baby girl!!