A Merry Christmas

What a wonderful season. My favorite part of the holiday season is how much time we get to spend with family.


Gracie says her favorite part of Christmas this year was that Faith was here and she got to give her presents. Here are Gracie and Pappy on Christmas morning.

Faith's favorite gift was a Kai-lan doll that Gracie gave her.

Gracie's favorite things were the baking items she received: baking mixes, utensils, a cook book. These are her cinnamon muffins.


Even with Mitch's crazy work schedule this year, we tried to fit in as many of our usual traditions as we could and I was please with how many of them we were able to squeeze in.

The Family

"THE FAMILY"

"THE KIDDOS"

"THE SNOW ANGELS"

And Lastly, I like to call this photo: "A FAR CRY FROM FUZHOU"

Sugar Cookie Time

It was sugar cookie time at our house...and OH, the mess! I think it takes as long to clean up as it does to do the whole project. When we were done, I said to Aunt Sue, "It doesn't seem like you should be tired after baking cookies, does it?" "Well, I know I am!" she said. It was alot of fun though.

The cookies that Faith worked on were completely non-edible. She played with the same piece of dough forever. She separated her piece of dough into about 20 little pieces and said they were snowmen.

Rice and Snow

Ok, so we were grocery shoppping at Walmart and the boys laid this gigantic bag of rice in the cart with Faith and said they were getting her back to her roots!!!

...and today was the first substantial snow fall of the year. Notice I took the pictures from INSIDE. Gracie and the boys were showing Faith how to eat snowballs. She was skeptical at first but soon caught on, only to be slowed down by her freezing cold hands.



I was noticing how close Christmas is and I haven't bought a single gift yet! I am not on the ball at all this year!

"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!!