....My Kerry Lu....

Happy Valentine's Day!

2012-02-14T19:44:00.022-08:00

Love is life. And if you miss love, you miss life.~ Leo Buscaglia

Saying goodbye to "Three"..

2012-02-12T19:16:00.000-08:00

This girl of mine is growing and changing so much. Even as I start making preparations for her birthday, which is just a few weeks away, I can hardly fathom that she will soon be four years old! Blows my mind, somehow. Now that she'll soon be leaving "Three" behind I thought it was time to document what she's been up to lately. It's been a while.

So, lets see....we'll start with what she's really into right now. She still loves music and dancing and singing. She's into "Mickey Mouse Clubhouse"and all things Disney and has even requested a Minnie Mouse themed birthday. She also has discovered "SuperWhy" and "Special Agent Oso" and she still loves her "Little Einsteins". She loves books but she'll kind of get obsessed with one or two at a time and will only want to read that one (or two) every.single.night for about a week or so. She really seems to be trying to learn to read. She's constantly asking "what's that spell? Or "How to you spell ___? Although she often says "smell" instead of "spell", hehee. She's been able to read lots of "sight words" for a long while now, but lately she's able to read and spell other 3-4 words. She's still really into numbers, too, always has been. She very recently learned to count to 100 and can do it completely on her own. We used to have to help her between the 9's and 10's (you know, fifty-nine, sixty, eight-nine, ninety..). Not anymore. And she recognizes any number she sees, even double digits. For example if she see's 74, she'll say seventy-four now, and not "seven, four".

She's taken to calling us "Mom" and "Dad" half of the time and can often be heard saying things like:

"Actually, Mom..."

"..but as you could see..."

"That's fun-tastic!"

She still loves to collect, and arrange, and store little things in boxes, containers...whatever. If something comes to her organized in a certain way or order..they have to stay that way. I bought her a new pack of markers a few weeks and after they're used she insists on putting them back in order (you know, red, orange, yellow, green, blue purple...). She's still loving her "school" on Thursdays and I'm starting to look for a real pre-school program to enroll her in this coming fall.

Naps are pretty much a thing of the past unless she falls asleep in her carseat.

She's about 38 inches and counting but seems to have been hovering around 34 pounds for months now. She's so tickled with herself that she can now reach the light switch in her bedroom now. This led to a funny conversation recently that went something like this:

K: "Mommy, are my legs growing?"
M: "Yes, honey, they certainly are."
K: "Are my arms, gonna grow?"
M: "Yes, they are."
K: "Is my head getting big?"
M: " Sure, I guess."
K: " Are my cracks growing?"
M: " Uummmmm...what???"
K: " You know....these! " (pointing to the little folds in the bends of her legs behind her knees.)
M: (giggling in relief) "Yes, honey..I suppose as you grow, your cracks will grow with you."

But she's still not to big to fit inside this mixer box. I haven't had the heart to get rid of it because she's still having so much fun filling it with all sorts of random household "odd-jects" as she says. Including, obviously, herself. =)

2012-02-06T20:45:00.001-08:00

Doug and I are both home on Mondays so we usually try to make this our fun "family" day. Today was georgeously sunny and mild so we spent close to an hour at the nearby playground. Kerry has loved this place since her first summer home. Except for the swings. We found out quickly that she hated swinging when we first brought her home and would cry as soon as her little tush hit the swing seat.

Now? She can't get enough of it. And the higher the better, thank-you-very-much. She's usually squealing in delight, or seems lost in the moment, like she does here.

Soaring...

Still celebrating...

2012-01-30T15:58:00.001-08:00

Our local FCC group had their Chinese New Year celebration on saturday and Kerry and I decided to check it out. Up until now we've only dressed up, done crafts, ordered dumplings and put a few decorations around the house, so this was her first "real" CNY bash. She's got a book and a couple of DVD's so she's been learning all about it and is she has been so excited about all things CNY this year. I guess it's just her age, last year she was not quite three so she just wasn't that into it, and this year she understands so much more about it so it's that much more for her to be excited about.

The "Dragon and Phoenix" print dress finally came in on Friday...just in time. I love her in red.

They had some pre-dinner crafts and games set up. Oh, and was she ever excited to get her first "Hong Bao" (lucky red envelope). She carried it with her all night.

Making a little cardboard dragon flyer. Afterwards she got to try to fly it into its cave (toss it into a basket on the floor) for a little prize.

Here all of the kids were lining up for the "Dragon Parade". This was what she was really waiting for. I can't even express how proud I was of her. Even 6 months ago she struggled with going to the Sunday School class with people she was familiar with because it meant neither I or her Daddy would be there. On Saturday night she happily joined up with a large group of mostly older kids, in a room full of strangers, in a place she'd never been before, and let me out her sight to join the Dragon Parade. Something just clicked late last summer and her separation anxiety issues have been mostly a thing of the past since.

They snaked around the large gymnasium several times. I managed to catch her in action as they passed.

She's in there somewhere. She's so little I kept losing sight of her.

As the evening wrapped up Kerry and a couple of new friends decided to take advantage of the open space to blow off some energy by chasing each other around in circles while giggling wildly.

They had banners representing each Province so I had to get a shot of Kerry with the Jiangxi banner. After all of the running around, her buns were starting to reach the end of their life span... despite the bobby pins and hairspray.

And of course there was a booth set up for shopping. Kerry chose this Chinese drum and has been happily demonstrating her drum skills for everyone who will listen.

Year of the Dragon

2012-01-23T14:44:00.000-08:00

2012 is the Year of the Dragon. In China the Dragon is considered to be a symbol of prosperity and good luck. I found this cute and easy Dragon puppet on-line for Kerry to make. She actually made two...one to keep and one she gave to friends at our favorite nearby Chinese restaurant. All she had to do was color the face and then we attached a "body" made of crepe paper streamers with scales drawn on them. So simple, and she had the best time running around the house making her Chinese dragon dance and fly.

I ordered a new red "Dragon and Phoeonix" cheongsam for Kerry to wear this year but it still hasn't arrived, so she wore her blue silks to church yesterday..the same ones she wore last year. They still fit! This was the last of the dresses that we bought in China (sniff, sniff). She's gotten taller but has gained only a couple of pounds this year. Everyone was complementing her on her beautiful dress and her pony-tails and she was positively beaming! She was so proud and was telling everyone, "It's Chinese New Year!".

2012-01-14T20:29:00.001-08:00

It is now officially COLD. And after a mid-day bubble bath Kerry was excited to see that it had started to snow.

I think its easy to see that she could not wait to get out and play in the first snow of the season.

Right about here is when I told her we were not going outside until her hair was dry.

But she got over her disappointment pretty quickly.

I love this girl.

And all of the expressions she makes when she's talking about something exciting....like playing in the snow.

Her hair eventually dried and she got to got out and play in the little bit of snow that fell.

And catch a few snowflakes on her cute little tongue.

2012-01-06T20:00:00.001-08:00

Hmm..I always thought Princesses were supposed to possess poise, grace, restraint...

Ah, now that's a little better.

Kerry got a cute little trunk full of fancy dresses, tiaras, jewelry, white gloves and sparkly sandals for Christmas from Uncle Dale and Aunt Stephanie. I was a little concerned that it would be completely ignored but she surprised me earlier this week by digging into it for a little dress-up session. Don't get me wrong, Kerry likes tea-parties, and lets me do cute things to her hair (while she's distracted by something "fun") but so far, that's about as "girlie-girl" as she's gotten. So I grabbed the camera and managed to snap a few photos to document this. She piled it all on, jewelry, gloves, fancy dress and shoes and , of course, tiara. It lasted long enough to parade up and down the hall a few times and admire herself in the long mirror at the end of the hall then the jewelry, shoes, and tiara were deposited back in the trunk. The dress lasted for a while, though, but does that really count when she's playing Chuck-E-Cheese's Super Collection on the Wii while wearing it ? Not sure. Anyway, it seems my girl is just going to be more of a "practical" type who just likes to dabble in the "girlie-girl" stuff now and then but just can't seem to maintain it for long periods of time (a little like myself, come to think of it). Maybe she'll prove me wrong as she get's older, but for now it seems that she just finds other things way more interesting.

Our Christmas..

2011-12-29T19:28:00.001-08:00

Kerry had such a fun Christmas season this year. This seems to be the first year that she was old enough to really be into everything about it. She was enjoying all of the Christmas music (just like her mommy) and even learned a few songs, she was really into helping us decorate the tree, and Santa was finally a hit this year. We watched some of the classics like "Frosty" and "Rudolph" and she loved them...last year, not interested. She had so much fun helping me wrap gifts (just not hers of course) and was my official "tape assistant". And she apparently has the ability now to anticipate the arrival of a big event so we got the "How many days til Chrismas?" question almost daily for at least 2 weeks, hee hee. Best of all she learned more about the birth of Christ =).

New jammies for Christmas Eve. She's still really into Minnie Mouse so she got a cute little gown and new slippers. (Her much loved froggy slippers are pretty much outgrown now..sniff, sniff).

This was the first year we left out milk and a cookie for the Man in Red. She even left a note. I wrote "to" and "from" and she wrote the "Santa" and "Kerry". I love her fancy "S" and the fact that she ran out of room and put the "A" underneath =). But she caught on quick and wrote her name smaller.

Sleepy eyed girl on Christmas morning passing out stockings.

This was all Daddy's idea. It really "eats, drinks, pees, and poo's". She's had fun with it so far.

This was her "Santa" gift. She asked him for a computer game so we got her a Leapster Explorer. She LOVES this and it has some great educational games like "Mr. Pencil". She's all about learning to write letters and spell words lately so its a favorite.

She got some other fun stuff, too, like two Play-Dough play sets, Lego's, lots of craft supplies and other goodies. We spent Christmas Eve with Doug's family and enjoyed our church's candle-light service. Christmas Day, after a nice leisurely morning at home we went to my parent's house for a huge lunch with family. I'm really feeling so blessed as we wrap up 2011.

2011-12-23T20:04:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas from our family to yours!

( these are the two photos that were on our Christmas card this year).

Kerry sings "This is the stuff"

2011-12-13T19:58:00.000-08:00

Kerry has a few favorite songs that she requests to listen to every-single-time-we-get-in-the-car. Here she's singing one of them. Oh my..she is a mess. I flipped the view screen over a few times so she could see herself...I bet you can tell which parts =).

What have we been up to?

2011-12-11T20:59:00.001-08:00

Baking cookies, with sprinkles of course. She's getting better about not dumping half the container of sprinkles on one cookie but, judging by the evidence on her lip, she still can't resist sampling the icing =).

Decorating Christmas trees.

Making milk chocolate and white chocolate dipped pretzels with Mamaw..a yearly tradition.

Lots and lots of pretzels.

Trying to get a Christmas card worthy photo. When the subject is as fidgety as she is cute, and Mama is 4 hours into an all day nausea inducing migraine...well..you get the picture. At least, if you're on my mailing list you will =) !

and an unsuccessful attempt at putting together a gingerbread house...she still enjoyed sampling the building material so all was not lost.

2011-12-08T19:31:00.000-08:00

Kerry recently saw episodes of Team Umizoomi and Special Agent Oso that both involved libraries. We visit the local library on occasion and I had always just checked out her books with mine. Well, after watching these episodes and learning about how libraries work she was so into everything about it. She was over the moon with excitement when I took her the library to get her very own card and so proud to sign her name to it all by herself and check out her first book. Afterwards we went to pick out a wallet to keep it in..she chose a cute little pink monkey wallet. Oh yes, she feels like "big stuff" now =).

"Shhh, Mommy, I'm reading."

And you should have seen her strutting around after she found her purse to carry her new wallet and card in. Too much, hee hee.

2011-11-29T19:47:00.000-08:00

What can I say, three year old girls are just fickle!

We were near a different mall today after an appointment, and it was a cold drizzly day, so we decided to hang out there for a bit and maybe get some Christmas shopping done. We passed by Santa's place and I guess she decided she liked the looks of this Santa and was feeling brave so she said "I want to go in and see him". Well, all-righty then...if only she could have done this 2 days ago when I had her actually dressed for a visit with Santa. Oh well, I adore this photo, and this girl, anyway. =)

He was a very good Santa and she was sooo, so sweet telling him that "Daddy wants new pajamas, Mommy wants earrings (I didn't tell her this), and I want a computer game". He talked to her and asked her questions and really won her over. She told him that she wanted him to come to her house and even told him what street she lived on. We found out that his favorite cookie is chocolate chip, so I guess we'll be leaving some out on Christmas Eve because, trust me, she will not let us forget.

So, how about a little look back so we can really appreciate the evolution in this relationship between Kerry and the big guy in red.

2009

Surly Santa..taxidermy Reindeer...and an unhappy Kerry. Nice.

2010

Good Santa...Kerry was doing great until she actually got up in his lap at which point she went into a state of shock at what she had just done.

And then there was todays photo.

I love todays photo =).

2011-11-28T20:14:00.001-08:00

My girl is very....expressive =)

It's going to be Christmas-card-picture-taking-time soon. Wish me luck.

She's looking festively red in these photos because I took her to see Santa yesterday....it was a no go. She wanted nothing to do with this strange bearded man in red so I didn't make her do it. She is, however, very excited for Christmas and, now that Thanksgiving is over she has been asking daily, "Is it Christmas yet?"

Things have been a little crazy and unsettled around here lately, which is my excuse for lack of posting lately. I feel horrible about it, too, because at the same time, Kerry is doing and saying the funniest things lately. She is growing and changing so much and I really need to document this more so I don't forget any of it.

She is full of imagination and pretend and I just love watching her play and listen to the little scenarios she comes up with. One of her favorite things to do right now is play "grocery store". We take turns being shopper and cashier, and when Daddy gets pulled in he is bag-boy, he hee.

Kerry's little dwarf hamster, Ruby, died unexpectedly a couple of weeks ago. She took it as well as could be expected. She just asked several times over the next couple of days "What happened to Ruby?" and "Why did Ruby have to get dead?" Explaining death to your three year old is tricky, and sad. Lucky for me, she has been watching the Lion King as much as we'll let her, lately, and so I was able to kind of use the scene where Mufasa dies to explain it to her as gently as possible. I purposely avoided saying that she "got sick" and died because I could just imagine the thoughts that would enter her head the next time one of us gets sick. We almost lost another pet last night. Our cat, Salem, started acting sick and painful last night and was really worrying me so I took him to a local 24 hour emergency vet. It turns out he had a life threatening urinary blockage. They sedated him, got the blockage out and flushed his bladder, and he is home now recuperating and feeling much, much better. He'll be on a special diet from now on to hopefully prevent that from happening again.

So I spent several hours at the emergency vet last night, then a doctors appointment of my own this morning, then back to Salems regular vet today to make sure he's still urinating and doing okay today, another appointment for me tomorrow, then one for Kerry on the 14th, and another for me on the 19th....this is what I mean when I say things are a little crazy lately. We did get to spend a nice relaxing evening putting up our Christmas tree tonight, though. Should be posting pictures of that, of course, soon...hopefully.

Her eyes..

2011-11-15T21:09:00.001-08:00

We found out at her first routine eye exam, a few months back, that Kerry has a condition called entropion. This means that some of Kerry's lower lashes turn inward, instead of outward. It's worse in her left eye. They are in constant contact with her eyes...I can't imagine what that must feel like. I get one little eyelash in my eye and it drives me bonkers until I get it out. She has never once complained, and has no redness or watering so this came as a quite a surprise to me although I knew that this is not uncommon in asian eyes. Today was her second visit with a pediatric eye specialist and she said that, just like when she examined her three months ago, the lashes are turning in, there are abrasions, but no scarring yet. So for now she will be watched closely in the hopes that as she grows and her face "matures" the lashes will naturally start to turn outward. In the mean time the eye specialist is setting up an appointment with a plastic surgeon. This is sort of a "just in case", in the event that she starts to see any scarring in Kerry's eye the plastic surgeon will already be familiar with her and ready to do what is needed to prevent permanent damage to her cornea. She did reassure us that surgery is not often needed for this, but she wants to be ready in case, which makes me feel some better. I'm really not liking the idea of surgery. I love my baby's eyes just like they are, BUT if something about them is not healthy then we'll do what has to be done. Pray it doesn't come to that.

110

2011-11-11T20:35:00.000-08:00

My baby girl is full of stories lately. A lot of them involve Pixie dust, Peter Pan, sharks...she's been watching "Jake and the Neverland Pirates" lately. I finally managed to catch a small bit of one of her "stories" and couldn't resist posting it.

Halloween 2011

2011-10-31T20:24:00.000-07:00

First a little flashback. My little Bumblebee on her first Halloween in 2009 =).

This was the first year that Kerry was interested in picking her costume. She has been really into Disney lately, especially "Mickey Mouse Clubhouse" so when she spotted this Minnie costume, she was sold. She even insisted on having a black nose like Minnie.

She was sooo excited this year. She has been asking daily...for the past two weeks.."How many days til trick-or-treat?"

Her pumpkin was full in no time and started getting heavy so I ended up carrying it for her toward the end. When we got home she said " I had so much fun!"

2011-10-28T14:41:00.000-07:00

Earlier this week my girl and I took of on our own to Bernheim Arboretum and Research Forest to take in the beautiful Fall weather and colors. Kerry loves to have "pick-a-nicks" so we packed up a cooler bag full of snacks and juice boxes and off we went.

I tell ya, for this Mama there's nothing better than seeing this sweet smiling face from across the pick-a-nick table. =).

We took in the Fall colors

And we played around a bit

A nice lady volunteered to take our picture on the Canopy Tree Walk. It juts out 75 feet above the forest floor and it sways a little. Kerry was a little nervous in this.

She cannot resist climbing rocks.

Hmm, I'm participating in Lisa's "Favorite Photo Friday" but can't seem to get the button that links back to it to show up on my blog.

2011-10-24T21:13:00.000-07:00

We have been busy enjoying the beautiful weather and some fun Fall activities so these pictures are just from random days this past week.

Those pearly whites got a a good cleaning and I'm happy to report, no cavities! This was her second visit with the dentist and, again, she did AWESOME! I love this office. They are always so good with her.

So I just have to share a little Kerry story from today. She is crazy about Mickey and Minnie lately and has recently discovered the "Mickey Mouse Clubhouse" website. Well earlier today Doug was outside mowing the lawn, I was cleaning up in the kitchen, and Kerry comes walking in with a coloring sheet print out in her hand. I was kind of surprised and asked who printed it out and she said "I did". It turns out she can now get herself on-line, got to Mickey's Clubhouse, and print out coloring sheets at will. Seriously?! My 3 1/2 year old is now as computer savvy as I was when I graduated high school! It really is a different world now isn't it?

Ready to Rock!

2011-10-18T17:51:00.000-07:00

Kerry loves using things as pretend drums, so we brought up the Wii Rock Band that had been sitting in the basement gathering dust since since she came home and let her go to town on the drumset. She was one happy little girl. I think she got the "are you ready to rock?" bit from an episode of the "Bubble Guppies" of all places =).

2011-10-11T18:58:00.000-07:00

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.

2011-10-04T20:28:00.001-07:00

So I got a surprise email from a family who just got home from China last week with their adorable girl who happens to be from the same SWI that Kerry spent her first 15 months in. I'm part of a Yahoo group for people who've adopted from this SWI and this family was given the opportunity to visit the orphanage while in China, so a few of us sent updated photos for them to give to the staff. We were told they were excited to get the updated photos of their former charges and called each of them by their Chinese name. At one point the staff pointed out a mural that is located on at the entrance to the property and pointed out a baby on the mural. They thought they recognized her as Kerry so they snapped a couple of photes and emailed them to me.

Sure enough, thats my girl. She's holding the hand of the mayor of JiAn and in her other hand is one of the toys that we sent in her care package, so this was probably taken in the weeks before we met her.

So two years after leaving, you could say she's gone but not forgotten. How cool is that?!

2011-10-03T21:21:00.001-07:00

Each October we spend a weekend at Lake Cumberland State Park with Doug's family and some friends from church. It always proves to me a fun and relaxing weekend, and this year was no different.

And for our little nature loving family, it's bliss.

Kerry had a great time feeding the local wildlife.

And we took a nice hike down to the lake shore where she collected rocks and little clam shells...

and she was thrilled to find lots of big rocks to climb on.

Showing me an acorn...she collected a bag full of these to give to "our squirrels" at home.

She also got to enjoy the indoor swimming pool at the lodge, as well as the large playground. Check out this great old-school metal slide. Mama even had a turn on that thing...just for old times sake =).

2011-09-26T19:03:00.000-07:00

"Mommy, if somebody's not happy, they should just turn their face into a smile"

Kerry said this yesterday while we were in the car having a little talk about how you can often choose your attitude, and whether or not you feel happy, or positive, instead of sad, or grumpy. She, umm, sometimes needs a gentle reminder of this. But, then, don't we all? =).

Kerry seems to be trying to add some bigger words to her vocabulary lately, which has led to some pretty cute phrases lately. My favorite is from earlier in the week. We were in a fitting room with a three way mirror and she said " Look Mommy, there's your collection! And there's MY collection, too!" She either meant to say "reflection" or, since it was a three way mirror, she was indeed referring to a "collection" of us.

"God only gave me two arms, I'm not an octopus!"

Can't remember why she said this, but it made me laugh.

"I'm so dexcited!!"

She's been saying this a lot lately, hee hee.

And just this morning:

"Mommy, I got a little problem here."

Kerry is still doing well in her mother's day out program on Thursdays. After two years, I can finally say that her separation issues are pretty much a thing of the past. Another one of the biggest reasons we put her in this program was to give her a little more socialization with other kids her age, and I can already see a difference in how she interacts and plays with other kids when we're ..say..at church, or at the park like we were earlier today. She seems more interested, whereas before, she would sometimes kind of ignore other chidren her age and either just do her own thing, stick close to us, or interact only with adults. But this is probably typical for her age. Anyway, it's looking like she's (hopefully) on her way to becoming as emotionally and socially ready for Pre-k as she is scholastically when it comes around this time next year. Our plan is working =).

2011-09-18T19:27:00.001-07:00

You know how some days leave you feeling physically and mentally exhausted, out of sorts, spent? And then there are days that leave you feeling ridiculously happy, energized, and utterly content. Well today was one of those days. It was just a really good day, and for no particular reason other than it was spent with with two of the people I love most. We went to church, cousin Sydnie was there and was in sunday school with Kerry...which thrilled her. We had a nice lunch with Nana, Papaw, Sydnie and baby Kinsley..along with our friends Joe and Polly. We did some grocery shopping later, and took Kerry to a nearby playground. Really no different than any other Sunday, but it was just....a really, really good day.

This little girl was feeling it, too. She was a super-hyper, giggly, bouncy bundle of three-year-old bubbliness. She was going full speed and full volume all day. She seems to be getting over a cold that had kind of had her wiped out this week, and she was able to take care of some overdue potty business, to put it nicely, so I think she was making up for her week of feeling not so great.

Have I mentioned how loud this girl can be when she's feeling a bit...exhuberant? I'm sure I have, it was something we noticed about her before we ever left China. I keep saying she would do great in theater because she can really make her voice carry when she wants to. Seriously...while we were at the store today, at one point she and Daddy were three aisles away from me and I could not only hear her but understand everything she was telling him, haha. I love this about her, but we have been working on teaching her to control her volume depending on whatever setting she's in. It's a work in progress =).

The cold she's getting over...I think she's given it to me. But that's okay because even with a scratchy throat and sore ears, it was, like I said, a really good day.

Daddy asked her if she had fun in Sunday school to which she replied:

" Yeah! And I listened really good, too!"

When he asked her, then, what she learned she said:

" I don't know."

2011-09-15T19:56:00.001-07:00

I love my girl's hair.

And I love that she still lets me play with it and put it in barettes and braids and pigtails. From day one, she's never really given me any fuss about fixing it. That could be because I usually do it while she's distracted by something "fun" ( see the Wii

remotes?)

So, aside from a few trims to even it out, I've just been letting it grow. Most of the summer I've had it up since her little face and head sweat like crazy if the temps get above, say, 78 degrees. I've thought of giving her some cute bangs but haven't for this very reason. Well the last few days we've been enjoying some nice fall-like temps so I just let her wear it down. I was struck with how long it's gotten. And I'm thrilled to see that it's finally reached the length that it sweeps to the side on it's own and doesn't hang in her face as much if she doesn't have a barrette in. (It seems grown straight forward and that had been an issue that nearly led to bangs a few times)

So anyway, I guess what I'm saying is, as much as I'm sometimes tempted, don't expect to see a cute little bob on my girl just yet. I'm still having too much fun with her long hair.

I kinda knew I would when I saw the head of hair on her in this photo taken at 4 months. =)

2011-09-10T20:53:00.001-07:00

We went to "Worldfest" last weekend (I've been meaning to post about that) and there was a little workshop where the kids could build wooden race cars. I found out that Lowes has a "Build and Grow" workshop every other Saturday so we decided to join in this morning. Todays project was to build little wooden police cars with working lights. My brother is a police officer who's birthday happens to be next month. Guess what Kerry is giving Uncle Dale for his birthday =).

Since it was her first time participating she got her apron and goggles today. Pretty cute, huh? She also got a certificate and a patch after completing her project. They give out a different patch for each project completed so Kerry is going to have fun collecting them and having Mommy add them to her apron. I think I've mention how much my girl loves to collect things.

She's so silly =).

2011-09-06T21:13:00.001-07:00

So we went from a sunny 102 degrees on Saturday to upper 60s and rain today. We really had no reason to leave the house today so, well, we didn't.... except for one trip about 3 minutes up the highway to Wal-Mart and then to our favorite nearby Chinese restaurant for some take-0ut Hunan chicken. We've been going there since Kerry came home and they absolutely adore Kerry... and we've come to love them, too. Seriously, even one of the men came all the way out of the kitchen to give her a hug and kiss. It's our "thing" to get lunch from there at least once a week one of my off days and now Kerry just walks in shouting "Ni hao!!".

Anyway, aside from getting lunch, the whole reason we went out was to check out Wal-Mart's craft department for something to do during our afternoon indoors. Kerry ended up choosing a bag of foam alphabet stickers. Not surprised as she's very interested lately in what things "smell" (spell) lately.

Once we got home she went right to work ended up doing this...

It took her singing the alphabet song about two dozen times to complete it, but complete it, she did, and all on her own =). Then she noticed that the bag contained numbers as well as letters so she added the bottom part...and after that she added her name in the blank space between the zero and the ten. This little project occupied her for a good hour and now hangs proudly on our refrigerator.

She gave some letters to her babies to "look at". She's playing with her dolls more lately and its so sweet to watch.

I often get a "Shhh, Mommy, they're sleeping".

She's playing more with her dollhouse too. We even spiffed it up with new wallpaper made from heavy scrapbook paper. Ever tried to wallpaper a dollhouse? Trimming around those little windows is tricky!

These are a few of her "friends", as she calls them. Baby Panda, Big Panda, Baby Penguin, Pink Bunny, and Robe (not pictured) are her constants. She sleeps with them and keeps track of where they are during the day. Then there are the others that are rotated out and new ones brought in every few days...some just leave me scratching my head. We have here, all lined up, a pink towel, glow worm, Baby Panda, Pink Bunny, Baby Penguin, a Care Bear, a frog slipper, Big Panda, a storage container from Christmas currently filled with "groceries", an orange race car, and a little box that something was shipped in that currently contains the cards from her Candy Land game and some other random items. Sometimes I wonder if this is normal three year old stuff, as opposed to "hoarding" behaviour. Hmmm..would love some feedback on that from any of my Bloggy friends.

2011-08-29T20:44:00.000-07:00

After tackling the highchair project a few weeks back, I decided to try to find an old wooden doll bed to fix up for Kerry to play with. I had some paint and plenty of fabric left over, and the sewing machine was already dusted off and oiled, so why not? I started by scouring the internet for several hours and found multiple listings for "vintage wooden doll bed" but most were selling for 50 to 100 dollars and up. Not exactly what I wanted to pay. But I learned a long time ago that, with a little patience, a better deal can usually be found. Luckily, I didn't have to wait long or look far. I decided to hit a "Peddler's Mall" across town, and just before I was about to leave, I found what I'd been looking for...almost.

I actually had more of a crib style bed in mind, but this was wooden, looked like it would go well with the high chair, Kerry liked it, and it was marked down to 18 dollars. Score!

So, like the high chair, I hit it with some primer and "ballet slipper pink" spray paint. I made new mattresses for it. And I made new pillows and quilts for it using the same fabric that I used on the high chair.

Kerry even got to help by stuffing the pillows with poly-fill.

The end product. I can see a couple of things I wish I'd done differently, like making the quilts a little wider so they'd maybe drape better, but Kerry is happy with it and that's what matters most to me. ( The wet spot on her skirt came from her little toy car outside in case you noticed it).

Since there are actually two beds, Kerry can actually fit most of her "babies" in all at once by laying them sideways. And this bunkbed separates into two twin beds, too.

Today Baby Penguin was the one enjoying the new bed. Kerry adores this little penguin...almost as much as her beloved pandas. Actually, she's into an "all things penguin" kick lately.

So, anway, that's my latest project. And, again, I had a lot of fun doing it. And now that I've got the sewing machine all warmed up, I'm thinking of trying my hand at making some simple little skirts and dresses for Kerry. Maybe.

2011-08-27T22:20:00.001-07:00

We spent the afternoon at Mamaw's. As we often do, we ended up making goodies....specifically, Scotcharoos ( a yummy conconction made of peanut butter, butterscotch morsels, and rice crispies covered in chocolate).

Kerry loves helping out in the kitchen.

Especially when it involves mixing ingredients...

and spreading....

but MOST especially, she loves licking the spoon, or spatula in this case.

After her bath tonight she got to enjoy another sampling.

So did Mama =).

2011-08-25T20:55:00.000-07:00

We've been toying with the idea of putting Kerry in a one day a week program for months now ( I think I've mentioned it here before). I've also mentioned Kerry's struggles with separation anxiety...it was a good year before we could even leave her with one of her grandparents for a little while...let alone someone she doesn't know well. I just couldn't take the look of terror, followed by panicked wails the few times we tried. I couldn't put her through it. It's just been this summer that she's gone to Children's Church on Sunday's without tears. Every thing I've ever read about toddler adoption and children who've come from "institutional" settings, along with my gut instincts with her, have told me that I need to be sure that she really "gets" that we'll always come back for her before pushing the issue. But, I've really wanted to put her in some sort of program so she's somewhat prepared for the separation that will come with Pre-K next year. Well, in the just the past couple of months or so, she has started showing so many signs of readiness that we decided to enroll her in a one day a week "Kids Kamp" program. Last Thursday was her first day. Let me tell you I lost some sleep worrying about how she might do. I had to work that day, but luckily Dougs parent's were just minutes away and "on standby" if she got truly and unconsolably upset. We'd spent the previous week talking with her about it, and letting her watch all of the "going to school" programs I could get my hands on. She'd met her "teacher" and some of her little classmates the week before. We got her new shoes, and let her pick out a lunchbox. Anything to prepare her and give her a sense of control in the situation.

Well, I'm very happy to report that my worries were for naught. We walked her to her room and after a quick good bye kiss and an "I'll be back soon"...we left. She had a worried look for a few seconds but "Miss Billie" quickly got her distracted as we left. I stood outside the door for a few seconds.....not so much as one tear (her at least... I was "this close"). Today was her second time going and, again, she did great. She even napped during their rest time which tells me she how comfortable she is with this. My girl finally "gets it". She trusts that we'll a lways come back for her. I can't tell you how happy this makes me. Yes it's always bittersweet when you see your child growing up and not needing you as much. But I'm so happy for her that she finally seems to feel safe in the knowledge that we'll never leave her.

2011-08-23T20:42:00.001-07:00

It's that time of year again. It's State Fair time! I've always enjoyed the fair and usually end up going at least once during it's yearly 10 day run. Kerry's first fair experience was just weeks after coming home, then we took her last year, and this now this year. It was HOT, and my shoulders ended up a little sunburned but all in all we had a great time.

Kerry first spotted the giant fountain at the entrance and had fun throwing pennies into it. She's always gone crazy for fountains....and they've helped this Mama out one more than one occasion while on the rare mall shopping trip.

One of her best "friends" is a little toy baby chick that was an easter present from a neighbor, and one of her favorite books is a story about a little chick, so she loved this little exhibit with hatching and newborn chicks.

She rode this little course in "Safety Town", complete with working traffic lights, miniature buildings, and an officer to tell them about road safety. She even got a little "drivers license" with her name on it for participating.

Her favorite thing of all seemed to be these little ducklings. They would scurry up a ramp, eat a bit, then slide...not so gracefully but oh so adorably....down this little slide, and then swim around to the ramp to do it all over again

After walking aroud some exhibits we ventured outside to the midway for a few rides. We bought Kerry some ride tickets and she was so excited to walk around with them and hand them to the ride operators. If you notice the sunglasses are a bit big for her, I forgot to bring hers (bad mama) so she ended up borrowing mine for a while =)

She chose this cool little motorcycle ride...

and got a bit of a surprise when it "popped a wheelie". It did this at a certain point during each time around the course.

I love this shot, ha ha! This ride kind of gave a lurch at the beginning and I happened to snap this pic at the right time to catch her reaction.

She ended up riding this twice.

Then it was time to cool off with some ice cream. Here, she's watching the band that was playing in the tent we found to get out of the sun while she finished her rapidly melting treat. We also ended up enjoying some corn dogs and lemon shake-ups. Gotta love fair food.

2011-08-17T20:33:00.001-07:00

My little surfer girl. Kerry has taken a keen interest in anything related to surfing this summer. We, unfortunately, live no where near any ocean so I attribute this to watching "Backyardigans" and a few other favorite shows that all had a surfing theme at the same time on our on demand programming recently.

So she decided that our chaise made a nice makeshift surboard to practice her form on.

(sigh) I know, Baby. Mama wishes we had an ocean

nearby, too.

Guess it's time to gang up on Daddy and convince him to move. Or at least take one more beach vacation before summer is over =).

Just a little project...

2011-08-08T20:55:00.000-07:00

So I had this old high chair that I got from my Gramma for Christmas when I was almost 4 years old. This thing was made in the late seventies, complete with a "Bicentennial" print, and it was just sad and dingy. Kerry has pretty much ignored it up until recently, so I decided that if she was going to play with it, it was going to have to get a serious freshening up. So I took some spray paint (I let Kerry pick the color), some fabric I had already, some batting, some poly-fill for a new pillow, and a staple gun and somehow managed to turn this....

Into this...

I had so much fun, and its so sweet to see my girl playing with the same high chair that I enjoyed as a youngster.

Today after Kerry "fed" one of her babies she said it needed burped. So she put in on her shoulder, gave it a good patting and said "BUUURP!". Then she said "TOOT!" and just laughed and laughed. She really cracks herself up. She makes me laugh, too =).

Time for a diaper change.

2011-07-30T20:25:00.001-07:00

Little girls, like butterflies, need no excuse.
-- Robert A. Heinlein

Remember when all we had to do was to keep our ponytails straight and catch fireflies?
-- Author Unknown

There is a garden in her eyes, where roses and white lilies flow.
-- Thomas Campion

Ever pet a Kangaroo?

2011-07-25T21:43:00.000-07:00

A Kangaroo's fur is actually incredibly soft. So soft, in fact. that they don't usually have to worry about fleas or ticks (something about them not liking the texture of the fur). We visited Kentucky Down Under yesterday and Kerry had a great time getting up close and personal with them. We had a guide to tell us who to pet, and how, and to tell us all about the animals.

This is a large Red Kangaroo. Isn't he magnificent?! It was soooo hot and it was right in the middle of day so they were all resting in the shade. They have a huge enclosure with room to roam, or hop, and lots of shade trees for the animals.

See the teeny little feet and ear peeking out of Mama's pouch? They belong to a five month old

Joey. These are Eastern Gray Kangaroos.

And this is another Mama with her 7 month old Joey. We also saw a Wallaby, Ostrich, several kinds of sheep, and various birds.

Kerry's favorite thing, though, was the cave.

My little Spelunker =)

It was 65 degrees in the cave, so after being in the 90 plus degree temps, it felt awesome.

Kerry also got to go "panning" for gemstones.

She thought this was pretty great, too.

What she did NOT like, though, was when we went in to the Lorikeet enclosure and one landed on her head. This photo was taken about two tenths of a second before the screaming and tears began. Poor baby was tired and hot by this time and just could not handle it.

After all of the fun, and heat, she was out like a light soon after her little rear hit the carseat. With her good friend Robe, of course.

2011-07-24T14:13:00.000-07:00

Kerry is very interested in where Daddy and I (part time) work and last night she asked why Daddy had to go to work. After I explained it to her she said

"When I get big I can go to work and make green money, too!" haha.

Daddy is lucky enough to be on vacation this coming week. We have a few fun things planned. Kerry is thrilled that she'll get to spend so much time with Daddy this week and says "I'm on bay-cation, too!"

She's recently learned that everyone in the family has an actual name besides just what she's used to calling them so she often tells us "Mamaw is Clara, and Papaw is Albert and Nana is Sandy and my other Papaw is John...and so on" She also knows both of our names and her full name. I guess I hadn't really taught her this yet since she really doesn't do anything independent from us yet, but I'm hoping, soon, to get her into something like a Mother's day out thing one day a week to help get her ready for the separation from us that she'll experience when she starts preschool next year

(gulp).

Another thing she's into lately is telling made up stories.

Here she's in the middle of telling one of the many "stories" that she's started coming up with lately.

You know..the kind that you can only sit back and listen to while saying "uh, huh".."wow!

''.."is that so?".

Which kind of brings me back to the separation thing. The one lingering "adoption related" issue she struggles with is some pretty significant separation anxiety. We

ll I've noticed a theme in some of her little stories, as if she's trying to process and deal with these anxieties. She tells stories about how the "Little Ein-skines" come and pick her up and she goes off with them and plays and she doesn't cry and then they bring her back to Mommy and Daddy. Or she'll tell stories about how going to the store by herself and that she's "not afraid of the big people" and that she doesn't cry and then she comes home to Mommy and Daddy. I think she's really making some progress in this area. In fact, today, she went to her "new class" (three-four year old class) at church with only a few brief tears initially, and she ended up doing great and seemed to really enjoy it and and said she wanted to go back again next week. I peeked in the window before picking her up and she looked so cute and tiny sitting in her little chair at the table, yet at the same time she's proving what a big girl she's becoming.

2011-07-17T20:50:00.000-07:00

We decided that the new Winnie the Pooh movie would make the perfect first movie theater experience for Kerry. It was a really cute movie and it was just over an hour long..perfect length for a three year olds attention span.

She had a great time and she loved the popcorn.
She looks so small holding that popcorn bag. She slept all the way home then was ready to play in the back yard for a while. It's been so hot and muggy that the early morning and evening hours are the only times you can be outside without melting.

She still likes feeding our little pond fish.

Lately she's been trying all sorts of new things on her playset. She'll say "Watch, I'm gonna do a cool trick!". Last summer she was still in her little pink baby/toddler swing.

Her favorite new trick is to swing on her belly, and she loves twisting the swing up by going around in circles a few times then "unwinding".

2011-07-14T22:00:00.001-07:00

I nearly gasped when I saw this picture for the first time. To me it was like catching a glimpse of what Kerry might look like as a teen. I had to resist an immediate urge to look up all-girl schools and/or convents in our area (and I'm not even Catholic). The little dimpled hands are the only clue to her real age.

Then in the very next shot, I see my baby girl again.

How does that happen!? Maybe she's just at some in between stage right now and the camera really reflects that. I'm not sure, but man does it mess with my head sometimes...and my heart.

2011-07-11T20:10:00.000-07:00

It was HOT, HOT, HOT today. Too hot to do much but hang out in the " splashin' pool" in the shade for nearly two hours.

And maybe eat an ice cold popsicle while in the "splashin' pool".

As for me..I had a lawn chair under the same shade tree, my feet in the water, a magazine or three in my lap, and my own orange popsicle which was melting almost faster than I could eat it.

2011-07-10T18:15:00.000-07:00

After church today we decided to check out a little community festival and "ice cream social" at a local historic site on the river. The thermometer was hovering just over 90 degrees but most of the activities were in the shade, and there was ice cream, so all in all it was a nice time.

Kerry love the little train ride.

She also got to go on another pony ride, she really seems to like the ponies.

Isn't this the prettiest little pony?

And to top it off, we got to ride in a georgeous carriage. This was a first for Mama, too =)

This was courtesy of Thunder..one of the biggest horses I've seen in a while.

All of this we did for a mere ten dollars worth of tickets, can you believe it?!

Being an "ice cream social" Kerry also got to enjoy an enormous cone full of Ehrler's strawberry icream. We ended up needing a cup to put it in since, as I said, it was over 90 degrees.

2011-07-04T21:45:00.000-07:00

I hope everyone had a wonderful Independence Day!

I know my little Firecracker did =)

We went to Uncle Dale and Aunt Stephanie's house and made low country boil (yum), then took a dip in their pool.

Then we came home for the neighborhood fireworks display.

She started getting nervous with some of the louder fireworks so I found her some earmuffs.

2011-06-29T20:58:00.000-07:00

My girl...

I love the faces she makes as she talks, and she likes to talk...alot.

Three year olds are so much fun to listen to, especially when they're playing with new words and phrases and trying to tell all kinds of stories. Lately she says "to-later" and "to-mornin" when she's talking about doing something, well, later or in the morning (I guess she's using it like "tomorrow", ha ha). She frequently asks "do you be-member?" even when talking about something that may be happening at that very moment. If there's something she doesn't particularly want to do, she'll sometimes say that she "can't" do it (nice try, sweetie).

She still sometimes pronounces her "L"s like "Y"s so in the evenings you'll find her catching "yite-ming bugs" with "ye-yo" tails.

Today as she was feeling her fingernails she said that her "paws were sharp so it's time to cwip 'em". Guess she's heard us say that about Salem and Sassy one too many times, ha ha.

Then there's the the little gem that she said, quite loudly, yesterday while in a public restroom....

"You went pee pee on the potty! Good girl, Mommy! You're a big girl...two fums up!".

Thanks, Hon.

2011-06-27T18:23:00.000-07:00

This weekend we attended our adoption agency's annual picnic at Boyds orchard. The weather was absolutely perfect, and Kerry had a great time. There was a hayride, playground, petting zoo...

She fell in love with this sweet miniature donkey...I kinda did, too.

They also had a huge pirate ship play structure. Kerry is all about pirates lately, thanks to D*sney's "Jake and the Neverland Pirates", so she thought this was pretty awesome.

Umm..Honey...I think the binoculars go the other way.

There, that's more like it =).

Speaking of...we were in the D*sney Store yesterday and when we walked in, one of the employees greeted Kerry with a "Hello Princess!". Kerry just blinked at her so the employee asked her if she was a Princess to which she replied:

"No...I'm just Kerry." Ha ha. However she has watched both "Cinderella" and "The Little Mermaid" this week, so we'll see if that mindset lasts.

2011-06-21T14:15:00.000-07:00

Two years ago today, Doug and I flew from Beijing to Nanchang, China. It was Father's Day. We had just gotten to our hotel room, put some of our things away, and readied some cheerios, stacking cups, and other toys. Twenty minutes later... a small, confused, stoic 15 month old with big brown eyes and a head full of dark hair was carried into our hotel room by a Nanny, along with the orphanage director and another female orphanage employee. Our guide translated a few things about Ji, Lu Ying:
"She already can walk."
"She likes to sleep on her belly."
"They call her Ying Ying."
"This is how you make her bottles...."

She asked a few more questions for us, they left, and just like that.....we were parents.

I'll never forget holding her for the first time...after almost 4 months of staring at her photos. She was solid and perfectly plump. She was beautiful. She was clean, but smelled like sweat and baby powder after traveling almost 4 hours from her orphanage...for possibly the first time since she'd arrived there. I remember finding baby powder caked in her little neck rolls. She had obviously been well taken care of, physically, and for that I will always be grateful. And now, she was ours.

I'll never forget how she looked each one of us up and down. She made no noise. I could see that she was, understandably, confused and a bit nervous....yet she didn't cry. It broke my heart a little to know that this 15 month old already seemed so well practiced in holding back tears and putting on a brave face. I later found out the character for her name "Ying", actually means "Brave".

We were absolutely in love. We did everything we could to break the ice...but it wasn't until the next morning that we got our first smiles from her. Along with the smiles..some real tears finally came. This told us that she was getting comfortable with us. Soon we saw some real personality shining through. She was spunky, smart, silly, sweet, and strong. She also had a serious and shy side. We spent so much time sitting on our big hotel bed with toys and snacks spread around, just playing and getting to know each other. I'll never forget how she would be happily playing and in the next moment, she would get this sad, scared look on her little face. She would heave a little sigh and her body would give a little shudder...then she'd reach up to me for a little hug, and she'd go on playing and babbling for a while. She bonded with me first, and did so fiercely.. but she played happily with her Daddy and seemed to adore him from day one. He just wasn't able to hold her much for the first week without tears. Before long, though, they were best of friends and have been ever since.

She's grown so much since that day. She's a little girl and not a baby any more. She's still whip-smart, silly, spunky, sweet, and strong, with shy and serious moments. And we love her like crazy. She is truly an answer to prayer...we are so blessed =).

(I had planned a Father's day post, too, but we were hit by more storms and were without power this weekend. Happy Father's Day, Doug...we love you!)

2011-06-14T20:22:00.001-07:00

Ah, Summer. This really is my favorite time of year, and Kerry seems to enjoy the warm weather and easy pace, too. On Sunday, after Church and grocery shopping, we spent a lazy afternoon out in the back yard.

Kerry looks lost in thought while swinging. I love this photo.

She's helped me water my little garden every day. We have two types of tomatoes, some lettuce, strawberries, and blackberries. We also have a little peach tree that we hope will be ripe for the picking in a few weeks.

Enjoying the porch swing with her hair all a mess. She lost her bow at some point during the afternoon and, for once, I never bothered to put it back in.

She's also been enjoying her "swpashin' pool"

And every evening for the past week we've enjoyed popsicles and/or ice cream out on the patio after dinner.

Finishing up just in time for the fireflies to start coming out. Dusk+ moving child= blurry photo...at least when the camera is in my hand and I have it on the no flash setting.

But, one of her new favorite things this summer is her bike seat...purchased just this past weekend. Doug and I used to ride bikes together pretty regularly during the summer, pre-Kerry. We decided that, this summer, it was time dust off the bikes and let her join in on the fun. Boy does she love it. I'm not surprised as she really likes being out of doors as much as we do when the weather is nice. It's the first time I've been on a bike in nearly two years, and I had to learn quickly how to balance with 32-ish extra pounds strapped on the back, but it's so fun to hear her little voice behind me saying "I yike riding bikes!" and pointing out everything she sees as we tool around the neighborhood. She's even started taking her "friends" with her on the rides...that's Baby Penguin above?

2011-06-10T19:03:00.001-07:00

After leaving Georgia, we headed south to the central Florida area to spent some time with my long-time friend, Jessica, and her family. I've known Jess since she was younger than Kerry, and she's always kinda been like the kid sister I never had. The first thing we did was take the kiddo's to enjoy a day at the beach. This was Kerry's second beach experience, but the first time she was able to get in the water (it was too cold last time). She absolutely loved it!! I wish I could have gotten pictures of her expressions but I was holding her hand most of the time, and Atlantic waves+excited three year old+camera....could spell disaster.

She also had a great time collecting a sand pail full of shells, which she insisted on bringing home with her to show her daddy. She got to talk to him on the phone several times a day to tell him all about what she'd been doing.

Jamey and Kerry sharing their beach toys.

After our day at the beach, we went to St. Augustine to stroll around and let the kiddos have some more fun at a playground and to ride a carousel.

Jess and her Joshie are pictured here enjoying a ride.

After spending another day or so visiting and having fun we said our goodbyes and headed even further south to visit another longtime friend, Jamie, who happens to be cousins with Jessica.

The first thing we did when we got there?

You guessed it! Another beach. This time we were on the gulf side and the waves were teeny-tinyy so I got a little braver with the camera.

I'm so glad I did. Just look at that happy little face! She had a great time jumping and splashing around.

See our miniature Great Wall?

I had a great time visiting and catching up with my friends but soon it was time to say goodbye and head back home. Kerry had so much fun but at times was really missing her Daddy and would say "I just want home".

Mom and Kerry relaxing outside of a Cracker Barrel in Georgia where we stopped for a lunch of chickan and dumplings...yum! Kerry loved the big checker's set.

2011-06-06T21:16:00.000-07:00

My computer issues are finally fixed (it got a nasty virus and had to be basically wiped and restored) so I'm happy to be back in Blog-Land. I've missed checking in on everyone...and I don't think I've ever gone this long without posting.

Last week Kerry, myself, and my Mom took a road trip. A very LONG road trip. Our first stop was in Georgia to meet a very special little girl. You may remember me posting a while back about a little girl that had been in the same orphanage with my Kerry. We sent a disposable camera to the orphanage in a care package and she was in many of the photos with Kerry. They really seemed to be special to each other. We were able to connect with Hannah's parents through a Yahoo group for our girl's orphanage and have been keeping in contact since she was matched with her forever family. We were so excited to be able to let the girls see each other for the first time since they were in the orphanage and let them get reacquainted.

These two seemed to be quite the pair =).

Hannah has been home for one year. She is an absolute doll and is such a sweetheart. Her parents, Lois and David, are wonderful people. We really enjoyed spending time with them, too.

It had been almost two years since the girl's had seen each other, but they took to each other very quickly.

It was such a sweet time. We definitely plan on keeping Kerry and Hannah in touch as they grow older.

2011-05-17T17:32:00.000-07:00

"Ladies and Jigglemens! Please, start your engines!"

I heard Kerry say this today and could not help but laugh.

Actually, I may have snorted...a little (hey, she caught me by surprise).

And we were in the middle of Meijers.

She's such a funny little monkey.

2011-05-17T08:47:00.001-07:00

Doug was on vacation this past week so we took a little overnight trip to visit the Newport Aquarium (right before her tummy troubles kicked in). Kerry loved the sharks and all of the colorful fish..some were HUGE. All of these pictures were taken with my little point and shoot "purse camera".

You can watch divers feed the sharks..but we didn't time it well so I didn't get pictures of that.

She saw pengiuns and got to feed a Lorikeet. Mommy and Daddy got to pet some sharks (maybe two feet long) but Kerry opted out of that

Then we enjoyed some ice cream.

And an evening swim in the hotel's indoor pool. See the adorable little stuffed baby penguin she's holding? She fell in love with it at the aquarium gift shop, so it came home with her =)

She looks very serious here, but she loved the pool.

warning..may be too graphic for squeamish readers.

2011-05-13T12:32:00.000-07:00

Did you know that,with enough determination....and sphincter strength.. one can go 6 days without a BM?

Did you know that even a three year old girl can posess such strength of will and sphincter?

Did you know that it's pretty much impossible to force this same three year old girl to sit on a potty chair when she's scared to have a BM?

Did you know that, even after 3 enemas and multiple doses of Miralax, certain three year old girls can still "hold it in", thereby requiring the Dr to prescribe Magnesium Citrate (the stuff they give patients to "prep" them for a colonoscopy) as a last resort?

Did you know that, while "night time absorbency" pull-ups work fine for containing pee, they are not absorbent enough to contain Magnesium Citrate induced poo?

Did you know that its a great idea to keep folded in half bathroom towels on the floor at strategic places through the house after a three year old has taken 3 days worth of enemas and laxatives...especially mag-citrate?

Did you know that even with tears running down her cheeks and poo running down her legs, this Mama still thinks she's the most precious and adorable thing ever.

If you already knew all of these things..don't laugh...this is still my first time at the Mama rodeo =).

(This photo was taken on Mother's Day at Church..they rolled out the red carpet for the Moms.)

She was sooo miserable..it just broke my heart. Thankfully she finally got relief and feels soooo much better today.

2011-05-08T13:02:00.001-07:00

"Of all the rights of women, the greatest is to be a mother." -- Lin Yutang

2011-05-02T21:04:00.000-07:00

My dogwood tree was in full bloom recently and was so pretty that I couldn't resist taking a photo. Have I mentioned that I'm loving the new lens I got for Christmas?

And we all know that I also can't resist taking a few photos of my girl....especially when she's having fun.

Isn't it wonderful how a child can completely change your life, in ways big and small. I love that! For Doug and myself, I think it's brought out things in us that we didn't even know existed, and even, I hope, helped lessen some of the more selfish and trivial aspects of ourselves. We're still far from perfect, Lord knows we'll never be. And children quickly learn how to "push our buttons" and show us just how much we often lack in patience, but I really think that having children just grows us in ways that might not be possible without having them...I hope that makes sense. Just another example of what blessings they are.

I've also been thinking of all of the fun, and even not so pretty, things that I've gotten to do since becoming a Mommy. Things like:

Falling in love with a precious baby girl on the other side of the planet.

Spending 30 some-odd hours traveling to China to meet this baby girl, fall even more in love with her, and officially become her Mommy.

Watch my husband take "like a fish to water" to his role as Daddy and fall in love with him all over again.

Try foods like squid, roast duck, and a few things I didn't really recognize , while in China.

Attend a service with other believers, in a C*mmunist country.

Buy multiple pairs of noisy shoes for MY child, something one usually does only for children that don't live with them, ha ha.

Change a "blow out" diaper about 5 hours into a 13 hour nonstop flight at 30,000 feet on a table the size of a shoe-box lid in a restroom the size of a small broom closet.

Worried more about another human being's poo than I ever imagined I would.

Given up control, for the most part, of the television and car CD player to a person smaller than myself...and found myself perfectly okay with that.

Used my childs "Disney Princess" lip gloss when I couldn't find a chap-stick or lip gloss of my own.

Had "I love you" mean something more beautiful than I ever imagined.

2011-05-01T21:52:00.001-07:00

Yesterday I asked Kerry if she was "sorry" for misbehaving (I can't even remember what the misbehavior was). Her reply?

"I'm a widdle bit sorry".

Ha ha, what a little stinker...it's a good thing she's so cute =)

2011-04-27T20:28:00.001-07:00

Makenna and her Mama were in town last week. We had a lucky little break in the rain so we met up at the Z00. It was so good to see Dana and Makenna and I think the girls had a great time getting reacquainted.

We have had soooo much rain over the last couple of weeks...our April rainfall total is over 10 1/2 inches so far...so during any little break in the weather, you'll find us outside for some fresh air and sunshine. It just makes for a happier Kerry (and it does Mama some good, too).

Kerry LOVES baking cookies...seriously...she gets so excited when I bring out the cookie cutters and baking sheets, so that's one thing we've done while the weather has been less than agreeable.

Easter re-cap..

2011-04-25T21:19:00.001-07:00

Easter started out, of course, with the dyeing of the eggs. This year we did it at my parent's house after a yummy dinner on Saturday. Here, Aunt Stephanie is joining in on the fun.

Then there's the basket....you can't forget the basket. We stuck with the essentials when it came to the sweets; you know, the Bunny (chocolate and P-butter..yum), the jelly beans, and some Skittles (okay...mommy wanted an excuse to buy Skittles). She also got "The Princess and the Frog" movie, and some fun little toys. She had obviously just woke up in this shot, ha ha.

I completely failed at getting some really good pictures of Kerry in her Easter dress. The weather has been gray and.....soggy, Kerry was kind of tired, so it just wasn't in the cards, folks.

After a beautiful worship service, Aunt Debbie and Uncle Travis hosted Sunday brunch (thanks, it was delicious) and an egg hunt, which had to be moved indoors this year. Here Kerry and cousin Sydnie are patiently waiting for the green light to start hunting =). Nana and Papaw fill each egg with quarters for the girls piggy banks.

And we couldn't let little cousin Kinsley go without an egg ..or dozen.. of her own. She is the cutest little thing ever.

Okay, she just turned three....but is it just me or does she look much older than that in this photo. Yikes.

Getting some lovin' from Papaw John. I love this photo.

I hope everyone had a blessed Resurrection Sunday.

2011-04-18T21:36:00.000-07:00

Today was teeth cleaning day. We recently had a new dental office open up within walking distance, and after finding out that it was "in network" with our insurance company (our old dentist was not), appointments were made for all three of us.

This was Kerry's very first Dentist visit. We talk it up all week, so she knew exactly what was coming and was ready to go.

While we were waiting to go back, it didn't take Kerry long to discover this little table with a paper roll stretched across it, just begging for her to "doodle" on it.

And this cute little "mouse hole" with more toys stashed inside for her to explore...

Soon it was her turn in the chair. She had a very brief moment of panic and decided she wanted me to hold her hand. After that, she was fine. She was, much to our relief, a calm a cooperative patient. They counted her teeth (she has twenty tiny pearly whites) then they flossed , cleaned, polished and brushed on a flouride coating.

She was thrilled to get a brand new Dora toothbrush, a little tube of SpongeBob toothepaste, and a little hourglass that helps show how long to brush (I still do that for her, of course). I was so proud of my brave girl, and I think she's pretty proud of herself, too.

Keep on the sunny side...

2011-04-16T13:55:00.000-07:00

Kerry was putting on a little show for her Mamaw yesterday to show her one of the songs she's learning lately. Yes, I know, another video clip but I couldn't resist =).

Backseat driver

2011-04-13T21:08:00.000-07:00

Now that Kerry knows what the different colors of traffic lights stand for, she feels it's her responsibility to let us know what color each traffic light we encounter is, and what to do about it. And if we're going somewhere she's been several times before, she likes to tell us where to turn and which way to go. She actually has a really good memory and sense of direction already. I have a feeling that in a few short years, I'll be asking her for driving directions...since my sense of direction is not always so keen, ha ha. It was almost naptime when I shot this little video, so you can see her cuddling Robe and taking little "hits" off of it...she's addicted, I tell you.

2011-04-07T19:41:00.005-07:00

This child melts my heart...

and makes me smile....really big =).

This is what she does when I ask her to "say cheese" and smile.

But sometimes she obliges me with a good old fashioned grin.

She lined up her blocks and said it was a xylophone (she says "zi-ya-phone"), and used straws to "play" it.

Kerry has been really obsessed lately with the idea of being "big" and being "little" and it reflects in the things she says lately. Things like:

"Mommy, when you get widdle (little) like me you can climb it"

"Daddy, you're to big to do dat, when you get widdle like me you can do it" ( She seems to think we can age backwards).

When asked to eat certain things she says "I can't, when I get bigger I'll yike (like) it".

When she sings she tends to sing loudly and when she dances she often looks kind of like she should be in a pre-school mosh pit, doesn't matter if its the ABC's song, or the theme song to the Backyardigans. So the other day I asked if she was rock'n' rolling and she said, "I'm to little to rock and roll, when I get big I can rock and roll! " ha ha.

She was carrying something heavy and I commented on how strong she was and she said, "Yeah, I AM gettin' big".

Yes, sweetie, you are.

Kerry singing in the tub

2011-04-05T22:02:00.000-07:00

Kerry has really been picking up on some of the songs she hears on the radio lately. There are a few that she gets particularly excited about and will sing along to, especially this one by Chris Tomlin. She was a bit distracted by her bathtub toys but I just had to get this on video.

2011-04-03T18:38:00.001-07:00

Kerry loves the indoor playspace at the E-Town Mall so, after brunch at Bob Evan's, that's were we spent our Saturday. They have all sorts of things to climb and room to run. It also has an enclosed perimeter so it's easy to keep up with the little ones...no darting out into the mall traffic.

On top of a Mayan pyramid.

A miniature of the Roman Colliseum.

The Great Wall =)....right before I stopped her from jumping off the side.

She also had fun on the little Merry-go-round.

Then we came home and played some more. "Miss Kitty" as my Mom and Kerry have named her, is a stray that came around a few years back and had kittens. I had her spayed so there'd be no more adorable little "gifts" to try and find homes for. She also eats well here and has a warm bed in our garage in the winter...but Miss Kitty prefers to be an outdoor cat. She and Kerry adore each other.

2011-03-29T14:19:00.001-07:00

Mondays are typically our "family" day. Doug and I are both off on Mondays so after running any necessary errands (yesterdays was checking out a new Dentist office andsetting up routine appointments for all three us), we try to do something relaxing and fun together as a family. The sun peeked out for a few hours, so, of course, we spent some time out of doors letting Kerry run off some pent up energy at her favorite neighborhood playground. And after her nap, she played in the back yard for a while.

I just love seeing my girl smile...

My Cherry tree is in full bloom...ahhh, I love early spring.

Kerry was tickled to see this little guy in our back yard. He's becoming a regular visitor.

There's that smile again =)

Of course, today it was chilly and gray and sleeting again...but hey, we enjoyed it while we had it. And better days are ahead, weather wise.

2011-03-26T14:50:00.000-07:00

Well, it's now sleeting and it's 37 degreees cooler than when I last posted (on Tuesday). That's spring in Kentucky for ya, if you don't like the weather here, just wait a half hour and it will most likely change. This is especially true in early spring and in the late fall. Thankfully that means that by next week, we'll probably be in short sleeves again.

This is also the time of year the various types of "ick" start spreading like wildfire...and one of these bugs has found my girl. I noticed a rash forming under her arm and down her side earlier in the week, and at first I thought it might be heat rash. It didn't go away and the more I looked at it the more it started looking kind of like a strep rash (remember I worked in pediatrics for 12+ years so I've seen plenty of rashes) except that it was only on one side in a large "patch". I took her to the Dr. yesterday and they swabbed her throat and sure enough, she's got strep, although her throat doesn't look bad at all...go figure. I was worried that she'd be less than happy about going back to the doctor, but as soon as I explained that we were just going to look at her rash and that she wasn't going to get any "ouchies' on her legs, she was fine. She even let them swab her throat with no fuss at all. Anyway, she's on Amoxil now and she loves the taste of it...funny girl.

2011-03-23T19:48:00.001-07:00

Spring has really sprung her in the last few days. Yesterday was sunny and just over 80 degrees and I was off work ( I work Wed-Fri.) so we, along with my parents, took advantage of it with a trip to Bernheim. Kerry enjoyed our "pick-a-nick" lunch and little nature walk.

Then we found the playground and let her run free...

Getting a little help from Mamaw on the balance beam. Her little tush is apparently not big enough yet to hold up these 3t cropped pants without a belt, ha ha.

She played with this neat little table..

And spent a while swinging, of course. She also got to feed the geese, fish, and turtles in one of the ponds (she absolutely loved the turtles) and she collected a few rocks. I love watching her explore and enjoy the outdoors. It gives me a great excuse to do the same =).

2011-03-21T20:39:00.000-07:00

Cousin Sydnie turned five over the weekend so Saturday was party day! The weather was warm and beautiful so it was the perfect day for a celebration.

The party was held at a firestation (Uncle Travis is a firefighter) and had a carnival theme complete with bounce house and lots of games. Kerry loves trampolines but for some reason is scared of bounce houses...I think it has something to do with the shakiness and instability...not sure but she hates them.

However, she did surprise me by getting her face painted. She wanted a flower and chose light blue for the petals.

She had lots of fun playing games for prizes..including this little penny toss game. I love her funny expression and stance in this one..ha ha.

Soon it was time for the Birthday Girl to blow out her candle.

And open presents...

Kerry is sporting her blue cupcake mustache here.

It seems like yesterday we were at the hospital welcoming Sydnie to the world...she was the first Grandbaby of the family. Now there are three Grand-Girls, the newest of these is this little beauty. Cousin Kinsley is just shy of four months old.

My girl, looking so tall, to me. You may notice her expression is a bit ..reserved in some of these photos, there's a reason. Kerry and I rode with Doug's parents to the party (Daddy works nights so couldn't go). As we were leaving, I had my hands full so after walking out to the car with Kerry to unload, her Papaw picked her up to put her in the car and buckle her in while I ran back to the house to lock up. I didn't tell her what I was doing and that I'd be right back...big mistake..totally my fault. In the seconds it took me to run to the house and lock up and run back, she had dissolved into tears. We've always had to be careful when letting anyone else she didn't know well hold her...and if she was uncomfortable or refused, we didn't force it. And even if it was someone she knew and we even looked like we might walk away, she would often start to panic and cry. But this was her Papaw, and she could see me the whole time...not enough, apparently. I handed her to someone, and walked away...and she lost it. Luckily the whole thing took just seconds to transpire, and I was able to calm her down pretty quickly afterward, but I still felt so bad. I should have warned her, and I won't be making that mistake again any time soon.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

2011-03-17T20:06:00.001-07:00

Always remember to forget the troubles that passed away.But never forget to remember the blessings that come each day.

Irish Blessing

This is the second, and it looks like the last, year that Kerry was able to wear this shirt from our sweet bloggy friends, Jill and Lilah.

This is a shot of her wearing it last St. Patrick's Day while we were in Florida. What a difference a year can make.

2011-03-14T12:29:00.001-07:00

I'm happy to see my little daffodils popping up. Winter is almost over! Have I mentioned I'm not much of a winter person. Actually, I love up until late December, because I love the Christmas season. But January and February just about do me in every year. At least it does make me appreciate Spring that much more. I get so excited to see things just starting to bud, and patches of green grass popping up, and bags of mulch and garden soil being stocked at the lawn and hardware stores. Ahhhh...makes me warmer just thinking of it. I'm already happily planning little projects for my yard.

I think Kerry is looking forward to Spring too =).

And growing in leaps and bounds...

Speaking of, she went in for her 3 year old check up today. She now weighs 32.8 pounds and is 37 1/4 inches tall. Just about 50th percentile. Her weight gain seems to be slowing just a tad bit, but certainly not her vertical growth. She looks taller and more stretch out to me every day. She's feeling pretty well and seems to be getting over her cold/allergy thing, but we did have a nice discussion with the pediatrician about some GI issues she's struggled with for the last several months. She was so, so brave and did everything the Doctor asked with no fuss. He had to do a quick rectal examination, and I thought she would lose it then, but no..she just laid there and I held her top half and talked to her. It just about broke my heart because I could see the little tears start to well up, but she never fussed. She did cry very briefly after her shot but I don't blame her one bit. Next Monday is her 6 month follow up with the cardiologist, and we're going to be setting her up for her first dentist appointment soon, too.

She's going down for a nap now, and she just told me that robe is making her boo-boo feel better =).

2011-03-13T13:11:00.000-07:00

My girl has been a little under the weather...we both have been, actually, with runny noses, congestion, cough. Let's just say we've not been far from a box of tissues for the past couple of days. We did have a nice warm up in the weather yesterday, and some sunshine, so Kerry got to enjoy a little bit of outdoor play.

She loves her sandbox.

And never tires of bubbles.

You can tell she's feeling a little "blah" in this photo...but she's hard to slow down, even when she's a little bit sick.

I liked this shot, even with the...umm...mucus. Poor baby.

She's played pretty well today, too, but we did skip church services just to be safe. I want her to share with her church nursery friends...just not germs. I took the above photo just about a half hour ago and she's now napping soundly with robe. Yep, she still loves robe and sleeps with it every night and at naptime unless we happen to be out and she falls asleep in the car.

And now for a little Kerry update:

I found out this past week that she knows which is left and which is right. I tried to trick her to see if she was just a good guesser, but nope...she knows every time. I haven't worked with her on this yet, so I don't know where she picked it up. She surprises me like that sometimes. She is full of imagination lately, and pretends to open the gate at the top of the basement stairs for us with her "magic key". She'll also say "oh no, you in twubble, I hafta rescue you!" and then she'll pretend to do so. She also likes to put on her "Umi-Goggles" and pretend she has a "belly screen", and she'll say her pigtails are like "Milli measures", (if you've ever seen Team Umizoomi, you'll know what this is about). She also likes to play "pirate" and still loves to have tea parties...sometimes she combines both.

Kerry quote from yesterday:

"I'm not Mommy's baby, I'm Mommy's Kerry"

2011-03-09T20:45:00.001-08:00

Yesterday we got a break in the constant rain we've been having lately so we went to a nearby playground to get some fresh air and soak up a little bit of sunshine. We ended up spending almost 2 hours there.

\

She could swing all day...she loves it. A far cry from the baby girl who hated swings when we first brought her home. She would cry as soon as her little bottom hit the swing seat.

Now she begs for mommy to push her "way higher!"

2011-03-07T21:15:00.000-08:00

This girl loves to get outside...and so do we. Funny how that works out =). Seriously, it was obvious from day one that we fit together perfectly as a family, and I thank God everyday for that.

Today, she decided she'd rather hop like a bunny than walk like a little girl...

And I, of course, decided I needed to snap some photos of Kerry, and her pigtails, in action.

Despite the fact that she's pretty darn cute, she's actually quite difficult to photograph simply because she's always on the move. This, combined with the fact that her idea of smiling for the camera usually involves a cheesy grin and the "pirate eye", makes a good face shot next to impossible most days. Thank goodness for a digital camera, patience, and the occasional stroke of luck...which was not on my side today. So...I guess we're sticking with action shots today which is fine since, well, she's all about action.

2011-03-03T20:28:00.000-08:00

Quote from Kerry: "I'll like Sa-yem when I'm bigger"...ha ha. I Guess poor Salem is just going to have to bide his time until them.

They actually tolerate each other pretty well until Salem decides he wants to be a part of what she's doing or he gets curious and sniffs her toys. She doesn't like that so she'll yell "No Sa-yem! No eating my stuff!"

Kerry is Three!

2011-02-28T13:43:00.001-08:00

Kerry is three years old today! Where has the time gone? Yesterday's party got of to a bit of a rough and late start as the Birthday Girl was....ummm...constipated. There's really no nice way to put it...but after she had taken care of said business she was ready to PAR-TAY.

I love her shy-but-excited expression as everyone sang the Birthday song. All she could talk about for weeks was that she was "gonna have cupcakes and fwee candles!!" So thats what she got. She was too fast for me to snap a shot of her blowing them out, but we did get it on video.

I ADORE this shot of her with her gi-normous cupcakes. These are Gi-Gi's cupcakes and they are so scrumptious. She's my big three year old now, but she still looks like my baby in this one.

All the little guests got goody-bags. Cousin Sydnie loved her guitar themed necklace kit and said " this is SOOO rock-and-roll"...ha ha!

Sweet little cutie-pie McKenna.

The adorable and spunky little miss "C"

And my loooooong time good friend, Christy with tiny Miss "C".

Opening presents. She got a Woody doll from Mommy and Daddy. She fell in love with it in the store so we just had to go back and get it.

She got a tiara and wanted to wear it..here she's trying to put the matching earings in. The tiara lasted about ten minutes.

She'd been saying she needed a "pink um-breya" so thats one thing Mamaw got her.

My cupcake fanatic was thrilled with this little play set from Miss "C".

Our budding architect loved this set of Lincoln Logs from Nana and Papaw.

Happy 3rd Birthday Sweet Girl! I can't wait to see what this year holds for Kerry. The changes we saw from her 2nd birthday until now were just amazing and wonderful to see.

2011-02-26T22:00:00.001-08:00

February 27, 2011

Two years ago today I got a surprise call at work.. just after 10 a.m. Dana, the special needs advocate at our agency, had found a baby at just after midnight and thought she might be the one for us. My head was spinning as I listened to Dana telling me that this baby was called Ji, Lu Ying, she had a VSD, she would be one year old the very next day, and that she was really cute. I immediately called Doug, raced home, and met him at the computer....where we fell in love with a tiny girl on the other side of the world.

From what I understand, each new list of special needs children available for adoption are posted at midnight our time for the adoption agencies to view. I'm so thankful to Dana for "burning the midnight oil" because if she had waited until morning to view the list, I'm pretty sure we would not have Kerry.

And I can't imagine life without her, now. I am so thankful, and so..so blessed.

2011-02-23T20:50:00.001-08:00

Laugh, and the World laughs with you......

Cry, and, well Mommy will scoop you up in a hurry and try to make it better...because Mommy loves that smile.

2011-02-22T21:17:00.000-08:00

Kerry loves her little dwarf hammy friend Ruby and was excited to spend some quality time with her yesterday. Louise passed on a couple of months ago (I'll spare you the details) and Kerry still asks about her occasionally. I don't know what else to say to a two-going-on-three year old aside from "Louise is gone, sweetie", which she accepts. She is so sweet with Ruby and handles her so gently. Ruby is equally as sweet and has never even offered to bite Kerry.

Last night we had a family movie and popcorn night. Aside from her beloved skates and a tambourine, Kerry owns nothing with the "Dis.ney Princesses" on them. We decided to take our chances and let her watch "Beauty and the Beast", and she seemed to enjoy it well enough...especially the music. She'd never seen it before and she sometimes likes to make up her own titles for things so she picked up the case, studied the cover for a second, and said "Dis one's called.... "The Pwincess singing"..ha ha.

Yeah, I'm hoping we can stay immune to the whole D.isney Princess merchandising. She was pretty into the movie at certain points then she'd lose interest and start coloring or working a puzzle, so we'll see. Judging by the only moderately interested look above, I think we might be safe for a bit longer. Right now, she'd rather be a Pirate than a Princess. I'm not complaining.

Oh and I had to share a funny little Kerry-ism from earlier this week. We were at Old N.avy just kinda seeing what we might find for spring and at one point Kerry said "Mommy! We're at the Old Maybe!"

2011-02-20T20:45:00.000-08:00

We've had a bit of a warm up here this past week, and let met tell you, we've been enjoying it immensely. Kerry has been able to participate in one of her favorite past times...blowing bubbles. She's also been able to enjoy her swingset in the back yard, and the neighborhood /playground. The poor thing had been suffering from acute cabin fever and after spending a total of three hours out doors on Thursday alone, she seems to be cured. The warmer weather has done a world of good for her Mama, as well =).

It was so breezy that all she had to do was hold this bubble wand in the air and let the wind do all the work.

Watching the bubbles float away.

Just cute...

2011-02-15T19:23:00.000-08:00

My baby girl is getting so excited about her upcoming birthday. She tells everyone, even the occasional stranger in the produce aisle, that she's "gonna be FWEE candles!" and that she's going to have cupcakes, and chocolate, vanilla and strawberry ice cream. We've even practiced blowing out candles. Let me tell you, the look on her sweet lil' face the first time she successfully blew out all of the wicks on the three wick candle we were practicing on, after being so excited about the idea of her "fwee candles", was priceless. As for me, I'm not sure I'm as ready as she is for my my "baby" girl to turn three.

And it seems that as she gets closer and closer to three, there are things that she does so differently than she did just a few short months ago. For instance, just look at the page she's painting above. Not so long ago, she would have paid little attention to the lines and would have just been content to put as much color in random spots as possible, and maybe paint a simple "smiley-face". Not any more. Although she still likes to add random splashes of color here and there, I watched for nearly half an hour as she carefully painted each of those boxes yellow..trying hard to stay in the lines. The growth and development that occurs in early childhood has always fascinated me, and now that I have a front row seat to observe it in my own child...sometimes I just have to sit back in awe, and watch.

Xin Nian Kuai Le (Happy Chinese New Year)

2011-02-02T16:47:00.001-08:00

When I got home from work today, I decided we needed a few photos in honor of Chinese
New Year. It's been dark and cloudy so I'm not happy with the lighting, but I'm crazy about my little subject =). When we were in China, we bought several of these little qipao dresses for Kerry in different sizes and they hang in her closet like little stair steps. This is the largest of these dresses. She's growing so fast!

Look who's back!

2011-01-31T13:47:00.001-08:00

Big Panda is home. After a brief stay at the "panda hospital" he's all better and Kerry has her friend back. To me it looks as if he's, um, gained a couple of pounds and Kerry even looked just a tad bit suspicious when she first pulled him out of the box, but she quickly welcomed him back with open arms.

2011-01-27T20:58:00.000-08:00

I know my girl is bright, and I don't feel bad in saying so since I can't take any genetic responsibility for it, but she kinda blew me away earlier today. See, she has this little sight words DVD that she's shown a lot of interest in watching lately, so of course I let her. I wasn't sure how much of it she was actually taking in since she usually just kinda watches it while also engaged in some other activity, and I'd not yet heard her "read' any of the words. Well, let me tell ya, she proved me wrong today.

She read the first word that popped up, which was "my", so of course I cheered and congratulated and so she got all excited and then......she proceeded to read almost every sight word on the DVD. She read: my, with, like, but, see, here, go, had, are, was, she, we, his, on, they, as.

Let me just say that I was all excited that she had read her first word...one word...and would have been thrilled if she'd left it at that, but she just kept on going. And she was so jazzed up and excited about it, too! I absolutely LOVE that she loves to learn new things...now lets just hope we can keep up with her.

And since it's still impossible for me to post without photos, here are some that I took earlier in the week =).

burned......

2011-01-26T20:59:00.000-08:00

Let me start by saying that no one was hurt...well, aside from "big Panda". I was cooking dinner earlier and Kerry was in and out of the kitchen, as usual, and apparently while I was peeling an onion over the trash can I didn't see her plop big Panda on the counter....right by the stove. He's kinda long and floppy and, well, his hind end apparently flopped right into the gas flame on the stove. It took a few seconds before I started smelling a "melting/burning" smell and by that time she had left the room. He never caught flame, but his hind quarters sorta scorched and melted. Ooops. Thankfully I knew that he was made by Ty and that it was named "baby Xio Lin" so 10 minutes on-line later ....replaced. Should ship out tomorrow. Phew! Poor Kerry took it better than I thought, but she did keep saying "baby Panda's okay. And pink bunny's okay. And robe's okay" as if to reassure herself that at least she still had her other friends. And she needed a little cuddling while we talked about what happened and I reassured her that Mommy would "fix it". She looked a bit sad on and off throughout the evening, but then she would rally and once again say how her other "friends" were okay.

(the gory aftermath....the white/red mess was his tag)

I'm so glad I was able to find her a new one.

Because I love my little monkey...and that smile.

2011-01-21T20:42:00.000-08:00

cookie face =)

This child of mine just melts my heart. She's really getting more and more affectionate lately. I can't tell you how many times this week that she's said "I yuv you, mommy" and I can't explain how happy and blessed I feel every single time she says it. She also still says we're "best friends", and last night for the first time she said "you're pwetty, Mommy". I know...awwwww, right?! When I come home from work she says "Mommy, I way way missed you".

When I think back to those first months with her, I can really see how far she's come. It's hard to explain, really. She's always wanted to be physically close to us. She still sometimes gets nervous if I have to leave the room abrubtly. She's always been able to give hugs and kisses, and she's always enjoyed physical play, like tickling and "rough-housing". I guess you could say that she always enjoyed affection.... in small doses. Maybe it's just what she was used to for her first 15 months. Her style was...give or get hugs and kisses, then run off and play. Have a tickle fest with Mommy or daddy, then go do something else. Run to Mommy for comfort after getting hurt, "get over it" in one minute flat, then run off and and play. She was not one for prolonged cuddling, or being rocked to sleep. That sort of thing took a lot longer.

Now, my girl asks for "cuddles" before bedtime...and I'm more than happy to oblige her. We're still having issues with separation axiety if we try to leave her with anyone but the grandparents, sometimes pretty severe issues, but we're getting there.

So what's new with Kerry? Well she's still growing like a little weed. The dress I put on her for church today seemed longer the last time she wore it. One of the church nursery workers even noticed and pointed it out to me. She's becoming even more of a little Miss Independant, and says "I do it all by myself" A LOT these days. She's been able to spell her name for a month or so without mistakes. But its cute because she says "K-E-R-R-Y, that smells Kerry!!"

Some other Kerry-isms:

Smatuwa = spatula

nemonade = lemonade

yook! = look!

ImagiwashunWoovers= Imagination Movers (Disney show)

scoof=scoot

She says "yeahh, I fink so." a lot lately, and when she's looking for something or someone she'll say "Mommy, have you ever seen ____?"

Her favorite movies right now are the "Toy Story" movies and "Despicable Me", and she will watch them in their entirety. her favorite shows are Yo Gabba Gabba and Umizoomi, although she still loves Kai-Lan and Dora, too.

She doesn't care what I put on her to wear during the daytime, but she insists on picking out what pajamas she wears at night.

She still loves to build things plays with her mega-blocks and tinker-toys a lot. I'm thinking of getting her some of these for her birthday.

She is obsessed with painting right now.

She still loves her robe, her pink bunny blankey thing that we sent to her while she was in the orphanage, an her pandas "which she now calls 'Baby Panda' and 'Big Panda". Oh, and she got some frog slippers for Christmas that she wears around the house all of the time, and she has to wear them to bed even if she has footed jammies on.

Anyway, this ended up being a long and rambling post, but she's growing and changing so quickly that I want to document these things so we can look back on them later. That and, well, I just love her so much that I can't stop talking about her =)

Snow day!

2011-01-21T17:43:00.000-08:00

We got about 3 inches of snow late yesterday, and Kerry was itching to go play in it, so as soon as I got home from work today, we bundled up and went outside.

Games we play...

2011-01-19T14:28:00.000-08:00

We bought Ker-Bear the Candy L*nd game for Christmas and last night I decided to get it out and see if she was ready for her first board game experience. Boy was she! She LOVED it and caught on very quickly. We ended up playing for an hour straight, and when my Mom came this morning to watch her while I went to work, it was the very first thing she wanted to do with her Mamaw. I love getting to experience all of these "firsts" with my girl!

She still likes to line things up =).

Yoga baby...

2011-01-14T22:27:00.000-08:00

It looks like I have a new yoga partner =). I have a couple of yoga DVD's and Kerry loves trying to mimic the moves. She seems to pick up more each time, and looks so darn cute trying to do them.

Snow day!

2011-01-12T20:18:00.001-08:00

We got a bit of snow yesterday, so Kerry and I went out for a little while to enjoy it. And enjoy it she did...much more so than her first snow experience last winter.

She spent a lot of time trying to make snowballs...

throwing snow up into the air...

...and here, she's making the worlds smallest snowman =).

And I just had to share something funny that I witnessed earlier this evening between Kerry and her Daddy. I've always known that she pretty much has him wrapped around her cute lil finger. Now I know just how tightly. Doug had her occupied downstairs while did some quick after dinner cleaning, and as I was mopping the kitchen floor I could hear them playing "tea party" and playdough...she even had him squeezed into her little R*se Petal Cottage at one point force feeding him fake fruit... but all of this is pretty common place between them. What made me laugh was when I heard her saying "Jump Daddy! Jump high! Jump wayyyy high!" ...and of course he did. You know...kind of like a when I say jump, you say "How high?" sort of thing.

And now I'm just a bit worried for the future man in her life. I hope he's good at taking orders.

The sweetest birthday gift ever!

2011-01-10T12:07:00.000-08:00

This is what I get to wake up to every morning =). She makes turning thirty seven a joy. And yes, she wrote that all on her own. Daddy just told her to copy "mom" from the card. One of the m's is upside down, but c'mon, she's only "two and fwee quarters" as she says these days.

2011-01-01T13:16:00.000-08:00

Happy 2011 !!!

I loved Kim's idea of looking back on the year with a photo a month. And since 2010 was the first year that had our girl with us for the entire year, I thought it would be fitting.

January 2010

I just love how those baby pig-tails stuck straight out.

February

Wearing the same dress/shirt as in the first picture. This month we celebrated our one year referral anniversary(the 27th) as well as Kerry's second birthday (the 28th).

March

This month Kerry had her first beach experience. She wasn't too sure about it at first.

April

My little "collector" had a blast hunting eggs and filling up her basket.

May

This month we took our first vacation as a family. We went to Ashville, NC and visited the Biltmore Estate and drove the beautiful Blue Ridge Parkway and Kerry showed what a great traveler she is...and that she could nearly eat her weight in ice cream over a three day period.

June

This month we celebrated one year as a family of three (on the 21st).

July

We took Kerry to Holiday World. She LOVED riding all of the rides and playing in the water park.

August

Kerry learned to pedal her trike, write her first letters (x, o, and w), and she graduated from her crib to a big girl bed.

September

This is about the time she started complaining about pains in her legs. And over the next few weeks, she had a big growth spurt to show for it.

October

November
This month Kerry started wearing big girl panties during the day, and pull-ups only at naptime and nighttime.

December

2010-12-26T11:07:00.000-08:00

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.

2010-12-24T12:44:00.000-08:00

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!

2010-12-21T22:20:00.000-08:00

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)

2010-12-11T21:41:00.000-08:00

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...

2010-12-09T21:05:00.000-08:00

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.