More FCC CNY Fun

I know I am her Mama but could I be any more blessed~

As you notice, Annslee had her face painted and while she was having this done a lady pointed at Daddy and told him to sit down. She said "Money" and painted money on the side of his face in Chinese characters. We later found out that she was not suppose to be one of the face painters. She apparently just joined them at the table, grabbed a brush and started painting LOL

She also painted Mia's face. Mia asked for "flower" and she did the characters. I think Mia was expecting an actual flower....

I wanted to get a picture of their facepaintings ~ Annslee really wanted to show me hers

They enjoyed the facepainting, crafts, running around, dancing on stage and eating lots of good food

Here you can see Daddy's money symbol ~ I hope that lady knew something LOL

*scroll down if you didn't see the first FCC post : )

FCC CNY

We went to our big Chinese New Year party last night with our local FCC. Here is a brief preview (I took 118 pictures!!) but I wanted to at least post a few.

Our little model before we left home. This was the largest dress we bought in China (size 10) and I think she can still wear it next year too. It makes me sad though b/c we didn't buy any bigger ones since we thought sure we would be back to China before we needed them



We have silk jackets we had made in China too (luckily we haven't outgrown ours)

Yeah, Mia was there ~ this picture is blurry but I think it sums up the fun they had!



I was standing near the check in desk when I spotted the lovely Paige ~ I immediately recognized her from her sister's blog Party of Many (this is the first time this has happened ) I approached Missy and she said "where is Annslee?" Yeah, small world. Paige is even more beautiful and happy in person!



Just a few more of the girls ~ oh, and some kids were not wearing gold LOL

Many more pictures are to come!!!

Her true love

I know she enjoys her dance class and gymnastics is so much fun. Twirling the batton has become a new passion and hiding so she can jump out and scare us is always a thrill. She will sit and do arts and crafts for hours. She loves to write and read and of course watch TV and movies. However, her true love is still swimming ~ yeah, she really does LOVE the water!

Looking at this picture I think we may be in big trouble in a few years with this sassy girl!







She and Daddy would count 1~2~3

then go under and wave at each other : )

*I wanted to say a huge thank you to everyone for your thoughts, prayers and kind words about my last post. I received several private emails as well and your friendships mean a lot to me. I am hopeful that we have a resolution of this issue that will keep us moving forward without a lot of extra time and money ~ of course the MOU (Memo of Understanding) issue with Vietnam is still troubling so your prayers are still needed for all of us working to bring our children home : ) In the meantime, we are enjoying our sweet Annslee!

Needing some good vibes

I don't want to go into any detail just yet but we hit a major roadblock yesterday in our journey to Malia. It is not a "deal breaker" but will definitely make things more difficult. I didn't sleep well at all last night and have spent most of today reaching out to "those in the know" and trying to sort this out. We could really use your thoughts, prayers and good vibes right now. I promise I will spill the beans when I know more.

Annslee has recently decided my Bible is her favorite book. Hey, maybe she has the right idea. She particularly likes the map of the Exodus and that may be appropriate right now as we feel we are no closer to that "promised land" of Vietnam than we were a year ago.

What a find!!

Annslee has been eyeing these ballet and cheerleading things at stores for months. The other day I was at a consignment sale (looking for clothes) and what did I see?? You guessed it, the same ballet and cheerleading toys sold for $20 each but now bundled together here for $7 total!! Of course I had to have them and she was thrilled. There is a mat with each, a ballet bar, pom poms, a batton (her personal fav) and 2 DVDs : )

After trying them out it was time to go to her "real" class

She loves her jump, jazz and roll class and so do we. It is 20 min of ballet, 20 min of gynastics and 20 min of cheerleading/tumbling. They are always on the move but she does look often to make sure we are watching : )

Sweetness

My friend Jana had a baby in November and we finally got to meet him on Sunday. Annslee was great with him. She was very concerned when he cried and the drooling made her laugh. She obviously has forgotten that she was the Queen of Drool about two years ago : )





I can't get over how big she is!



I was looking for a drool pic but I think most of them from that time are on my other computer. I did locate this one ~ you can see it on her shirt and even a little droplet on her sweet chin ~ seriously, she wore a bib 90% of the time! This is from December 2005 and yes, that is Mia with her ~ they have grown so much *sigh*

Happy Birthday To

well, me technically but don't try telling that to Annslee. She has a CD where the Princesses sing to her and say her name over 80 times (yeah, fun) and one song is where Ari*el sings Happy Birthday Princess Annslee so she thinks every birthday is hers. If you ask her whose birthday it is she will say "Anns eee" and will let you know Ari*el said so!! Notice my birthday cake is purple : )

The card she gave me was a Princess card...of course I am one but she thinks the card is hers. Dad gave me a card that sings "Super Freak" hmmmmm



*btw, she has underwear on but it doesn't look like it ha ha



The cake was very tempting and she just couldn't help but sneak some icing as it thawed (it was an ice cream cake)





Of course she blew out the candles ~ twice



Yesterday we went to brunch to celebrate since she has gymnastics tonight and we wouldn't be able to do dinner. Honestly, I really like brunch better anyway.



She obviously enjoyed the chocolate fountain!



41 was a good year ~ so come on 42, I am ready!!

Is there anything better

than true friendship between two sweet girls?? Seriously, they are so funny and sweet together we just can't get enough of it!


Yeah, Mia came to visit and after playing in Annslee's room for a while it was time to get on the princess attire and have a tea party

After the tea party we found them back in Annslee's room holding their "look alikes" and they thought it was really funny : )

They each got a peppermint patty courtesy of Mia's mama and I wanted a picture of them eating it ~ they just wanted me out of the way so they could watch their show!

I hope everyone is as lucky as Annslee to have a best friend like Mia. Seriously, Annslee LOVES her so much and it is so sweet how excited they get about seeing each other. The bonus for me is that Mia's Mama (who does have a name by the way ~ Jenny) absolutely loves Annslee. I mean the kind only usually given by grandparents, aunts, uncles, you know the what I mean. We are truly blessed to have friends who love our daughter that much. Of course, we feel the same about Mia : )

Thanks B, R, M & E

Today's mail had another Valentine package for Miss Annslee!! This was from Aunt Beth, Uncle Rich and cousins Matthew and Evan. She is finally saying Beth but still signs "B" when she says it , the others are still signs only. I am always amazed at how quickly she can run through all the signs for people. Anyway, she was thrilled to receive some new goodies for bathtime and after dinner we had to try them out!

The ladybug squirter was fun of course ( I liked it most when the water was staying IN the tub)



I have a mirror close by b/c she LOVES seeing herself with crazy hair!

She used all of the purple crayon~ surprise, surprise : )



My water baby really enjoys her bath



These shirts were also included in the package ~ can't wait to see her wearing these! Thanks again Aunt Beth!!!



*Glad another post is up and we can get back to staring at the real cutie in this house...seriously 45 comments on my hair!! Was my hair really that bad before or were y'all just impressed with Annslee's photography skills??

Chop Chop

Annslee is feeling much better today : ) Thanks to everyone for your kinds words, thoughts and prayers for her.

On another note, I got my hair chopped off today. Hey, I am going to be 42 on Monday and the Marcia Brady hairdo needed to GO!! Here are a few pics....Annslee took them : )







It is a little shorter than I planned but I love it. I have such straight baby fine hair and this definitely gives it more body. (If you don't remember what it looked like before you will have to go to the Christmas Eve post to see) I think it will take a little for Daddy to get used to but Annslee loves it. When I was leaving to go I told her I was going to get my hair done like hers. I meant short but when I said that she said "Black?" LOL No, I think I would look pretty scary with jet black hair!

Poor Baby

Annslee finished her antibiotics for strep on Saturday and since then hasn't felt well. The past two nights I have slept with her because she has been coughing so hard I thought she would throw up. Well, that finally happened today : (

I took her to the doctor this morning but ours wasn't there and it was a horrible experience. She was fine until the doctor tried to look in her ears and then she basically screamed the rest of the time! Her ears are fine ~ she just has a lot of that dry wax and so it is painful to look at them (yes, her hearing has been tested and is fine) Anyway, they said it was just a really bad cold. She had a HUGE melt down at the "treasure chest" b/c she wanted three of those cheap crappy bracelets and the doctor said "only one please" so I felt I had to back the doctor as my sick child screamed for more. Yeah, she was still screaming as I was buckling her into her carseat but wanted a hug from Mama. I know I did the right thing (didn't I... I mean, she has to have boundaries) but she is sick and I really think OUR doctor would have let her have three LOL

I brought her home and this afternoon her fever spiked to 102.5 and I sat with her and watched TV for a while. I went to put cornbread in the oven and when I got back, this is what I found~



If she isn't feeling better by Thursday we are going to see OUR doctor whom Annslee loves : )

Mail time!!

Yeah, she got a Valentine gift in the mail...from her GiGi : ) Waiting over three weeks to open it was not an option!! Hey, and she picked the perfect card for her....she actually squealed



She sent York Pep Patties..YUM!!
* since people have commented ~yes, GiGi is on the ball but the gift was included in a package that held my birthday gift. My bday is the 28th but of course Annslee had me open that already too : )

Guess who we saw today??

After watching Return to Never*land for the 100th time this morning we finally made it out the door to go to the bookstore for storytime

We heard a friend was going to be there and we could meet him


Can you guess who it was??



Yep, that silly monkey! All the kids had to make monkey noises to make him come out and my little monkey was the loudest one ~ I am not joking : )

I had to snap the pictures fast because there were so many kids trying to rush the stage!

She had fun listening to the story and meeting CG~ she went through a phase of really loving him but even though she is past that for now it was still fun seeing him in person. My only issue was that there were about 60 kids there and the people in charge had no control over the situation. I kept having to tell my 3 year old that she had to wait her turn over and over as other kids and some adults were pushing her out of the way to get to him. Finally , I just took her right up and gave the stink eye to anyone even thinking of trying to move her. Come on, really?? Then on her way back to me the "mob" rushed the stage and she was poked in the eye. We headed to the bathroom to put a cold papertowel on it!

Needless to say, when she asked to play with the train set I said of course : )