ROLLERBLADING

While Daddy and Danny went to see Eragon and Jenise was at a friend's, the kids decided to rollerblade in the cellar while Mommy finished Christmas stuff. Luckily JiaLi likes to hug the couch as she skates....

Trying to get a picture....

Here is the process I went through to try to catch a picture of JiaLi.....

The final picture is in the next post but the things we go through....and to think in the "olden" days I used to actually develop a roll of film and of course not be happy and go through another roll just to get a picture for our card. I am so thankful for digital :)

Concerts

Well, it's that time of year with all the school concerts. Here are some pictures from the day of Danny's concert and today at Joseph's concert. This is Danny's first year playing the saxophone and the pictures I took at the concert were way to dark to post so I took some when we got home. I have more to post but with each attempt the program is not letting me even in a new post. So here is what I was able to post.... Joseph at his concert. I was unable to get him singing because when all the kids stood up, he was behind some kids and I am too short to reach my arms up to get an overhead picture. He was so cute!! Danny was a nervous wreck about his concert but he was so cute on the stage --he's learned a lot in a short time:) JiaLi was so excited to go to Joseph's and Danny's schools. Of course, Joseph got all the hugs today(Danny was last week) :) Actually she is always willing to hug anyone!! Further down is the picture we are going to use on our wall along with all the kids school pictures. I wanted to post pictures of the process to get the shot--JiaLi playing peek-a-boo, hiding, running away, but I'm not able to right now so I posted the final one.

Christmas tree

Every year we get a real Christmas tree and every year we talk about going someplace to cut down our tree. Well, we finally did it this year. We rotate through the kids for choosing the tree and this year was Jenise's turn. As we walked through to the trees, there were signs everywhere warning not to step on the baby trees. After I read the sign to everyone, JiaLi was pointing to all the little trees saying "baby tree." She now calls our tree at home(which is not a baby) "baby tree". Of course, Joseph was right up there ready to help with shaking the tree and then all the kids were able to pull the tree through the wrapper. Below JiaLi and Jenise were the first to begin decorating the tree. Before Jenise even got started, JiaLi had four ornaments on the tree. Talk about a hard time taking a picture. We actually got the tree two weekends ago and were finally able to decorate this weekend. The kids were all overtired--crazy weekend.

Car Seat Then and Now

A little late with this post but wanted to share these pictures from our Chinese Restaurant evening--as mentioned previously, our Thanksgiving was celebrated early so we decided to go out for Chinese food for a one year celebration. Above is JiaLi experiencing the car seat for the first time one year ago and below is her experience now:) followed by pictures from the restaurant.

One Year Ago..

I cannot believe a year has gone by and how much has happened in that year. Here is Joe receiving JiaLi on Gotcha Day and then calling me to let me know he is holding her. How I sat by the computer just waiting for the pictures to be posted---of course it took a while--even though JiaLi appears to be sleeping in the picture, it was not quite the case when Joe returned to the room. Of course, I, on the other end of the phone halfway across the world, was just happy to hear her--I couldn't touch her, I couldn't smell her, I could see her in pictures but just to hear her cry was such a thrill for me-- And here she is now(a month ago) --this is my favorite picture we have of her alone and below is my absolute favorite picture of her. Of course, she is happiest when she is with one of her brothers or sister. Which is a good thing in our house:) What a love she is and how much love she has brought to our home amazes me(us) everyday. It really is like she has been here all along.

Early Thanksgiving

JiaLi with Gramma("MiMi") and Papa Normally on Thanksgiving, we have all of Joe's family over for dinner and then we go to my Mom's house later. This year, Joe's Mom is having surgery on Nov. 21st and will be in rehab following the surgery so we decided to celebrate Thanksgiving early. Here JiaLi is with her cousin Katelynn. JiaLi just loves her cousin and whenever they are together winds up following her everywhere(luckily Katelynn enjoys this). At the end of the night, the boys decided to relax and draw. Here are all the cousins seated at the dinner table--JiaLi was at the head but then decided she wanted to sit right next to her brothers. You can click on the picture to see it better:) Here they are--all the cousins!!! We have so much to be thankful for this year and it was special to celebrate this weekend--it was one year ago that Joe was in China and we were all anxiously awaiting his return. We are so looking forward to the real Thanksgiving day this year -since we have already celebrated, we have decided to celebrate by going out for a Chinese dinner. We will still stop by my Mom's too.