I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas. I know we did. We spent lots of time with family, and had lots of delicious food...

I can hardly believe this is our second Christmas with our sweetie-pie.

We went to a candlelight service at our church on Christmas Eve, then it was off to Doug's parent's home for dinner and, of course, presents.

One of her gifts was this D*ra the Explorer microphone. Everytime we go down the toy aisle at Wal-Mart she picks it up and tries to put it in the cart, so she was pretty excited about this gift.

All three grand-girls got new jammies. Sydnie strikes a pose in her new jammies and pink cow-girl boots below.

She's 4 going on 14..

Kerry is still crazy for her uncle "Twavis" and shadowed him all evening.

Even baby Kinsley got new jammies. She's 3 weeks old now.

After we left the in-laws we drove around looking at Christmas lights until Kerry fell asleep..at a ridiculously late hour. But she still managed to wake up at 8 am Christmas morning.

Merry Christmas sleepy-head!

Her big gift was this cute little pink H*rley Davidson motorized ride-on. She also got from us a Red-Rover game, as well as Chutes and L*dders and C*ndyland. She got a georgeous Madame Alex*ander asian doll, and a Thom*s the train set, a green tu-tu dress up set from Jess (missed you) a Buzz Lightyear, a play cleaning set, among other things. My girl has a very wide range of interest and her gifts reflected it. =).

After a leisurely morning, we headed out to my parent's house where we consumed ridiculous amounts of food, and of course there were more gifts.

We got just enough snow to make for a white Christmas, and a pretty drive out.

We had a bit of a Christmas breakthrough! Last year Kerry was terrified to get up close to Santa Claus and since she was so little, you couldn't really reason with her on the matter, but now that she's two (soon approaching three) and after watching a few Christmas specials with him in them, she finally decided she was ready to visit the Jolly old Elf...I mean really excited. The whole car ride to the mall she kept saying "I'm gonna see Santa! And sit on his lap!" "Mommy, I'm -a get pwesent's for you, Mommy!!" When we got to the mall we were lucky enough to only have about 3 people in line in front of us, and this was just earlier this week. Within minutes of getting our place in line, I looked behind us to see the line growing very quickly, we apparently timed it perfectly. Anyway, while waiting in line she was saying "Hi Santa! " and nearly ran up to him while another child was still with him. She was so excited and I kept reminding her that we had to wait our turn and to be patient. Well as soon as it was her turn she ran right up to the Man in red and hopped right up in his lap. She never, ever, goes to strangers like that, but she did. I think she kinda surprised herself, because after all her excitement....this is the best picture we could get..





This picture cracks me up! I think she was in total shock at what she had just done. But as soon as the picture taking was done and Santa started talking to her and asking what she wanted for Christmas she was totally fine if just a little shy. Doesn't he make a great Santa?!

(I'm in need of a new scanner, so I had to take a picture of the photo itself, but you get the idea..sorry)

So the stockings are hung...

Kerry has her own little tree in her room..

And her own nativity scene..

So I think we're ready for Christmas.

I feel so happy!

Kerry loves Kai-Lan, and one of her favorite episodes is the one where Kai-Lan goes to China. She has the DVD and can't tell you how many times she's watched it. She has the dialogue pretty much memorized and, as you can see, she loves the music. =)



" We're going to China, we're going to China, I feel so happy I just wanna sing.."

(no we aren't going back for #2...yet)

This girl-o-mine just warms my heart.

Now that she's learned to speak in full sentences, she's getting to be quite the little chatter-box.

As in she can talk...non-stop...for extended periods of time. I'm not complaining, I love being able to really communicate with her. And witnessing this language acquisition has been absolutely fascinating to me. From the 15 month old trying to wrap her little brain around this new language she was hearing, speaking her first few English words before we'd left China. The toddler spending the next few months soaking up the language, picking up a new word or two every few days, all the while losing understanding of her first language. Then it seemed like the day she turned two, she started stringing these words together into her first two-three word sentences.

N0w, 9 months later, she's speaking in complete sentences, and is even starting to pick up some "slang". And she's misprouncing some words less and less. It's almost bittersweet as it just brings home the reality of how quickly she's growing up. She'll be three in just less than three months, which means she officially graduates from toddler to preschooler, though it seems she's been in some sort of "in between' stage for several months now. Some things we've heard lately:

"Hi guys!"

" I'm so funny!"

"I can't take a nap, Mommy"

" I'm gonna go show Daddy my sad" (she does this if something puts her in a less than happy mood)

And now if she's not too sure how to react she says to herself: "Are you happy or sad?.........HAPPY!!"

Well, about nine times out of ten she decides she's happy

But the BEST thing I've heard is "I love you".

Kerry and I are both a bit under the weather with some sort of cold/allergy type thing. We don't really "feel bad" but let's just say we sound bad and we've been going through tissues like crazy.

Christmas goodies...

On Tuesday we spent the afternoon with my Mom making Christmas goodies. We wanted to do something that would be easy for Kerry to help with so we dipped pretzels. We did the same thing last year .

Is this not the largest bag of pretzels you've ever seen?!

Kerry couldn't even wait for the fun to begin before she started eating them =)

We dipped some in white chocolate and almond bark..





and some in melted Ghir*rdelli chocolate....yummm. Kerry's job was to keep tossing the pretzels into the big bowls of melted goodness while Mamaw and I stirred to coat them and then laid them out on wax paper to set up.



Kerry took time out for an ice cream break and ended up with a cute goatee.





Mamaw can't get enough of her one and only grandbaby.

I'd been promising Kerry all week that we would make cookies and it's been all she could talk about, in fact the first thing I heard when I walked through the door after work yesterday was

"Mommy, we gonna make cookies, and put sprinkles, and icing, and bake....!!!!" So
that's just what we did. She has so much fun helping to stir, and cutting out the shapes with cookie cutters and putting on the icing and sprinkles. She made snowmen, gingerbread man, and christmas tree shaped cookies. I didn't get pictures of the finished product, but they were really cute.

Enjoying a little bedtime snack of cookies and milk.

Kerry has a brand-spankin new baby cousin! Kinsley weighs in at 8 pounds 4 ounces and is just 19 inches long. When she's all swaddled up she reminds me of a football =).

Isn't she adorable?! Check out those cheeks..and all of that hair!

Proud big sis..Sydnie.

Ha ha, that's a chocolate cake, brought by a thoughtful friend, that mama Debbie is digging into. Can you blame her?!

Kerry adores her uncle Travis, he usually ends up playing human jungle gym for her. I think he kinda likes her, too =).

Happy Thanksgiving!

Christmas card photo-shoot attempt...take one.

Started off pretty good, as long as I kept a steady supply of her new favorite cookies and M&M's coming (hey, a Mama's gotta do what a Mama's gotta do).

Look closely and you'll see the chocolate drool under her mouth.

I started losing her right about here...

Checking herself out in the mirror I was using to reflect the light from the window

Then the headband came off...

And the dress came off....and so ended our attempt at this years Christmas card photo. I would have loved to take outdoor photos but it turned off cold today =(.

...and I felt like the worst Mommy in the world.

We have two cats, Sassy (gray,tabby-ish, almost 15 years old), and Salem ( big, black, and very nosy). Anyway, we were down stairs tonight and Kerry was playing and I was doing some laundry and then I decided that the litter in the cat's box needed changed. While I was trying to put a new liner and fresh litter in, Salem (who somehow knows ahead of time when I'm going to do this so he "holds it" and waits to do his business in the fresh litter....every...time) kept jumping in and out of the box and making my job way more difficult than it had to be. Well, I got irritated and yelled at him ( I made it up to him with treats later) and I guess Kerry couldn't help but hear me as she was making pl*y-dough "pies" just a few feet away. She didn't show any sort of reaction and I didn't think anything of it until later.

Now let me just mention that lately when Kerry is, shall we say, naughty (she's two AND she's a "spicy Jiangxi girl" so it does happen) and I sometimes have to scold her, her new way of apologizing is to do something sweet or cute and then say "I make Mommy happy." Sometimes its like a statement, and other times it's more of a question. I usually say something like "Yes, Sweetie, you make Mommy very happy. Mommy loves you, even when you're a little stinker." I find it interesting that she does this, and I don't want her getting the idea that my love for her is conditional.

Anway, we made our way upstairs and I started dinner. And all evening she was just being extra sweet and kept giving me hugs and wanted to hold my hand through dinner-time and she kept saying " Make Mommy happy?". I was wondering what it was all about and then I finally traced it back to the litter-box incident. I don't think she'd ever heard me use that tone of voice and I guess it startled her. I felt about this big. I felt so bad that I'd snapped at the poor cat, in front of Kerry, and then she somehow felt she needed to make me "happy" again. Needless to say I gave her lots of hugs and kisses and assured her that Mommy is very "happy" and we had a good tickle fest and lots of giggles and she seemed to be just fine by bed time. I'm glad to know that Kerry is starting to show concern for the feelings of those around her, and show empathy, but I'm definitely going to be more careful with how I handle irritation from now on.

On another note, and because a new post = photos, check out how long Kerry's hair is getting!

Kerry loves to sing lately, especially when we're in the car. I finally caught a clip of her singing and thought I'd share it.

She apparently thinks the song goes; "Michael row the boat ashore, Ha-may WOOOOOO-yun" =)

Fall leaves and smiley faces

Getting ready to go to work.

We had a hard time actually getting her to play in the leaves. Daddy and I jumped in the piles and kicked leaves around and pretty much acted like a couple of goofballs, but she was still not interested. She did end up pretending the pile was a bed and "took a nap" in it, but thats it. She's just not one of those kids who likes making messes.....typically. On occasion she does a pretty good job of it, but not often.

She did however have a lot of fun raking and transferring leaves from one pile to another.

Kerry has been wanting to paint almost every evening this past week, and I had to share her first recognizable face =).

Skates and small talk...

Kerry is becoming more and more of a chatterbox. It seems every day she comes up with something that she wasn't saying the day before. I wanted to document a few of the more memorable things she's come with these past few weeks. Things like:

"Wind's blowin', gonna rain! Need a 'brella. Don't rain on meee!"

"Mommy have a back, Daddy have a back, Kerry have a back, we ALL have backs!"

"Be careful, don't fall in there" (while sitting on the"big potty").

"Wow!, Cool stuff, Mommy!"

She now adds "Mommy" to nearly anything she says, I guess to make sure she has my attention. And she tells on herself sometimes.

"Mommy, I makin' somfin!"

"Mommy, I burp!"

"I pee-pee inna baftub, Mommy!"

"Mommy, I pee-pee again!"

"Mommy, I climbin"

"Mommy! I'm over here, Mommy!"

I love it.

On another note, We were wandering around a consignment store yesterday and I found this little pair of strap on skates for Kerry, complete with knee pads, elbow pads, and carrying case. She is in LOVE with them. She even had to fall asleep with them last night and bring them with her in the car to church this morning. The skates stayed in the car, needless to say. She can stand in them and scoot around a little bit, but mostly I hold her hands and pull her around while she smiles from ear to ear =).

Strapping on the skates.

Steady....steady...

Ta-daaaaa!

I adore that smile, but I'm not sure I like how tall she looks in those skates..I keep telling her not to grow up so fast, but like most 2.8 year olds, she's got her own ideas about things =/.

And she looked so sweet napping today, I couldn't resist snapping a picture.

Which reminded me of one of my favorite pictures of my girl taken one month after she was placed in our arms. Since today is Orphan Sunday, I can't help but think about all of the other children still left in her orphanage, and all of the other orphanages in the world. More than 132 million worldwide. I wish I could do more for them. Giving what little monetary donations we can is something, I guess, but somehow I feel like I should do more. And sometimes I feel like God is leading me to something more, I'm just not sure what yet.