I love this shot of my girl. It's just so her, on the move.

And I love this one too, cause Mama still sees her baby cheeks in this one =).

This is the "I'm gonna get you, Mommy" shot...hee hee.

I feel like I've been a neglectful blogger lately..mostly because it seems like it's been so busy that I'm letting so much go undocumented in this little scrapbook of sorts.

So what's new with Kerry? Well, I'll say that my Jiangxi girl is still as spicy as ever...and at 3 1/2 she seems to have perfected the "whiny voice" when something isn't quite going her way, or she's frustrated. She decided to test the rules the other day by saying "No!" when I asked her to do something and...well..lets just say we had a little meeting of the minds and she won't be doing that againg any time soon. A wise mama friend of mine (hi Jess) said that she read somewhere that often at the half-year mark a child may experience a developmental growth spurt, and with that comes a new "awareness" and they sometimes try to test the rules. I absolutely believe it. I have noticed a developmental growth spurt. Her language and thought processes seem to be getting more..sophisticated, and emotionally she has made some big leaps in independence (going to Mother's day out on her own on Thursdays..huge for her), and for the last several months shes been asking lots and lots of questions about EVERYTHING. So I'm not surprised that she's been a little "extra spicy" and out of sorts at times. So we've just been trying to get into her little head and see where she's at right now , and reassure her that the rules all still apply and, by the way, it might be time to add a few more developmentally appropriate expectations of behavior. Seems to be going well.

Thankfully, she is still every bit as sweet as she is spicy, if not more so. She's always telling us we're her "best friends forever". She's really learning to have good manners and her little "please", and "thank you's" are so sweet. We get the best hugs and "I love you's" from her...those are the best. And just today she absolutely made me melt when she said:

"Mommy, let's happy ever after".

We're sure going to to our best sweetheart. =).

Here she is with the pumpkin she picked from a recent outing to a pumpkin patch..which I neglected to post about (see what I mean?). We're going to wait another year or two before carving our pumpkin..for now she paints them. She LOVES to paint.