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. 
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.
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.
Here is everyone on the Real Halloween. There was a slight twist in costumes. Edward decided to be Luke and Joseph wanted to be Anakin. Jenise and Danny stuck with their Padme and Darth Vader costumes (although Danny did not wear the head gear walking around) and JiaLi was a hatless witch. The dress is a dress Jenise had when she was younger. The witch outfit was more a Mom costume--Mom wanted to see her in the dress. She did love wearing it. She was in awe that by ringing someone's doorbell and saying "trick-or-treat", someone would give you a treat. She had a blast.
