"The First Thanksgiving"....to follow "the first birthday"

Might we call this "The First Thanksgiving" ?!! We've had so many celebrations since this little one came home, she'll think that's all we do....and wouldn't it be wonderful if it was!


Cousin Laura finally makes the blog!! Remember "Aunt Lou" who blogged for me while we were in China...well this is her daughter and my lovely cousin Laura.




Christian and Faith look through the Christmas cookbook. Christian wanted to look for a new recipe he might like.



Hooray for cousins! And let's talk about the blessing of cousins for a moment. My kid's cousins have been such a big blessing in their lives. I'm so thankful for them.



And tonight we had Gracie's ingenious creation...A "Big Girl/Little Girl Sleepover". Three "big girls" and 3 "little girls" and lots and lots of nail polish!!!! The boys all conveniently flew the coop for the night except poor Christian who was stuck at home and hid away in his bedroom most of the night. I got Faith to bed and came back to the kitchen to find them all in a line doing the cha-cha.


...and after crafting, the dining room table could barely be seen and there was glitter from one end of the house to the other.

What fun! Thank you big girls!!


Today I am most thankful for God's faithfulness. I am thankful that God shows His faithfulness ever so clearly when the road is rocky. I am thankful that even though we can't see the end of the road, we can see His footsteps on the road ahead of us. I am thankful that it is not I who order this life, but it is Him, and I am only responsible to follow.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone.

My First American Birthday!! I'm 3 Years Old!

It seemed really strange having a 3-year-old birthday party for a little one who's been with us only 3 months....I guess each month counted for a year!!

Her first American birthday party was obviously her first ever birthday party. She had no idea what was going on. But next year she will!!

Jennie made her a beautiful Dora cake and she got lots of Dora and Ni Hao Kai-Lan stuff. We just discovered Kai-Lan who is a little Chinese girl.


It was a good day... and then...

she was all tired out.
I like to call this photo: "All the comforts of A home"
It's beautiful because she's surrounded by all these cuddly things that she used to make her angry. And HOLDING A DOLL !!

For Uncle Dan and Aunt Jessica

Dan and Jes,
Sorry the quality of this video isn't very good, but I thought you would enjoy seeing Faith open the birthday presents you sent her all the way from Texas. She loves her Kai Lan things!!

Tea Party and Ballet Time

I just had to post these video clips of the girls (below). If you listen closely you can get a tiny glimpse of Faith's English skills. She is really alot more fluent than you can tell in these video clips though. It's amazing. We have several Chinese words that we are attempting to preserve for her by calling our shoes "high-dees" and our phones "peimbas" and saying "Boo-Yow" instead of no. I honestly have been listening for her to say "shir-da" (yes) ever since we got her and just heard it yesterday when her Aunt Susie took her out to eat. I said, "Did you have a good time with Aunt Susie?" and just as plain as day she shook her head yes and said, "Shir-da".

Her English is very functionable (is that a word?) already. She says many whole phrases and sentences and at times she's almost conversational. Her prayers really get you. Two nights ago she said "Dear God we love You. Thank you for my bed. Thank you for Mommy. Thank you for Daddy. Thank you for Mitchell....."and she went through the whole family without missing a person. I would love to try to plant a recorder to capture one of them. I wonder what my Chinese would be like if I had been dropped into China all alone 2 months ago??? Oh wait...most Chinese can speak some English so I wouldn't be totally submersed like she was. It's really amazing.

Many of you have asked me for an update on her night time anxiety and I am happy to report, she has not had any night terrors for several weeks. I am so thankful because they make for really abrupt awakenings as she would just scream in her sleep. Also, and this is the neatest thing, she almost enjoys bedtime now. A few weeks ago she stopped crying about bedtime and now she actually snuggles down under her covers with a big smile on her face and says "night mommy". She has started saying, "Thank you for my bed" in her prayers and I never prompted her to do this.

She also sings all the time. I don't know if I ever wrote about the fact that we were really shocked to see a child who never sang. I can't explain it very well but there was no music in her at all and wow, is music vital to the spirit. The first time I was ever holding her and sang, she pulled back and looked at me like "What in the World are you doing"??? ....She now sings all the time. By the way, just in case you don't understand it, she's singing "All the children of the world, red and yellow, black and white". She'll sing something and then look over at me a grin.


Her other favorite activities are drawing and eating, eating, eating. Did I mention she likes to eat? She calls herself Fay-ful, and she always says, "Fay-ful kungry" She says it constantly and the other day she was back in the bathroom on the potty and Mitch had walked out the hall and I followed him out and said, "Are you hungry?" and clear from the bathroom we heard this little voice yell, "Fay-ful kungry!" Yesterday she got up from a nap and I sat her on the potty and she took my face in her hands and very seriously said, "Go get pizza mommy".

I guess one last thing to report would be that she now rocks and sings to her stuffed animals and babies. The reason this is so momentous is because when we first brought her home, she was greatly angered by the showing of affection. When we would put a doll on our shoulder and act like we were rocking or patting it, she would swat at it and yell and if we put a doll in her arms, she would throw it down and yell. It is amazing how just a small amount of cuddling and rocking rubs off on a child so quickly.

Anyways...I hope you enjoy the video. Gracie is a very good ballet teacher. Yesterday Faith was trying to teach my dad ballet....imagine that. Hope you enjoy it.

Love as always.

School Daze and Ice Cream Craze

It was a beautiful day in PA, but as I walked out the door late tonight, I noted that the air had that snappy winter feel to it. You southern moms whose blogs I like to read...I'll be thinking of you as we go into hibernation. This is why it has been so great looking at southern beach houses with my cousin Jennie as we try to plan a spring, family vacation. Ahh...warmth.

Well, it has only taken me a month, but I think we have finally fallen into a school routine. This year's homeschool routine has emerged via playpens, fast movement on my part, a willing seven year old pre-school teacher, organization, and lots and lots of prayer. I realize I will now be homeschooling until I am fifty five years old. (Is there a law against that?) I always lament over the fact that the younger kids don't get to do some of the neat things that the older kids did when they were little, like the fun little science experiment books, or sitting and reading books with me for extended periods of time. I guess they have different things though, like lots of siblings to play with, or going to band, or watching older siblings play instruments, or going to ballet. It's interesting that when Mitchell was little he sang the Donut Man and Wee Sing Praise and my young ones now skip straight from learning to wave bye-bye to singing Britt Nicole and Toby Mac. Every day I long for a little peace and quiet, yet there's something really great about living in a somewhat chaotic household full of people. I know that someday when my house is quiet, I will look longingly back on the chaos.

Christian found a great way to entertain himself the other day. Here's his pyramid made completely of Ritchey's Ice Cream containers. Now, I could tell you that we ate all this ice cream, or I could tell you that we just collect them to freeze applesauce in.....I think I'll just let you believe what you want.


My dear little ballerina...


Now this is one tired girl! She has an absolutely grueling schedule. She gets up promptly at 10:30 or 11:00am, she eats, watches Barney, eats, plays with Gracie, eats, falls asleep, eats....well, you get the picture. We say "She eats and sleeps with a vengence" She thinks I should feed her constantly and she is almost impossible to wake up and can fall asleep sitting stark upright.
Yesterday, I gave her a bowl of cereal and walked out of the kitchen for a few minutes to help one of the other kids with something and returned to find her fast asleep with her face lying in a puddle of soggy cereal. (Not sure if there was any drowning danger or not :) ) Crazy, huh?


And then there are our wonderful friends who we are so blessed to have as neighbors as well. Alexa's day was made when Faith let her hold her. So, here's Faith and Alexa...

And here's Faith and Zach, whom she lovingly calls "Zackol"...

I was reading today about Moses. And I was thinking about how God gives us grace in our weakness and how that is enough for whatever may come. He is our sufficiency, because we are completely and utterly destitute in and of ourselves. It is only by Him, and for Him, and because of Him that we fight this good fight of faith. Praise God, that His strength is made perfect in our weakness. Because if I can offer Him my weakness and in return He gives me His strength, that's a pretty precious promise. So often that's all we have to offer...weakness. But I will most gladly hand it over, "so that the power of Christ may rest upon me".

Much love
Cherie