Christmas Surprise

 This Christmas Anne Marie was in for a BIG surprise!  We decided to re-decorate Anne Marie's room for part of her Christmas present.  She was currently sleeping in a toddler bed - and she was getting a little too big for it.  She still had all the "old" decorations from her nursery and she has lately been talking about wanting pink and purple butterflies - with polka dots.  Well - I looked & looked & looked for these three things.  I finally found something that I thought would make her very happy.  And I must say that pink is NOT my favorite color - however it is hers and I knew she would love it.  Once I found the quilt (light pink, hot pink, white stripes on one side - polka-dots on the other side with butterflies sewn in) I remembered the kite that we bought for her while we were in China.  We bought a big box full of gifts from China - enough to give her one every year until she's 18.  Usually we give her these gifts on Forever-Family day.  But this year, we decided to add it to the room & be part of her gift.  So, we went with an Asian-Butterfly theme for her room.  And if I do say so myself - it turned out cute - and she LOVED it!

Her face when we brought her into her room to show her the surprise!

 The new bed - it's a trundle bed (which she'd been asking for) & a "princes" drape over the head of it (it's a Asian parasol w/ pink fabric draped over it. -- and PINK polka-dot curtains.

 I found this print on ETSY -- I fell in LOVE with it & it went SOOOO well w/ the theme of the room!

 We hung her Chinese butterfly kite from the ceiling.

 We found cute little butterfly frames from the $1 store - she'd been asking for pictures of her friends in her room, so we added a picture of her with each of her friends in the frames.  We also added some Chinese decorations to the shelves above.

We also bought some paper lanterns in the three colors & hung them from her ceiling - right above her dress-up corner we created for her.

Anne Marie LOVED her room -- especially the princess drape over the head of her bed.  It was so much fun to do (even thought it was CRAZY trying to get this together in 24 hours - with the great help from my mom & her husband!!!)  And it was fun to see her face when she saw it for the first time!

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas to our friends and family.  We hope your day was filled with joy, love peace, friends, family and the comfort knowing that God's gift of the birth of Jesus is the greatest gift we could ever get.  We're enjoying a quiet Christmas this year.   Celebrating Christmas-eve with my family, Christmas morning just the 3 of us, and Christmas evening with Mike's family.   We are so thankful for each of you & hope you have a blessed, safe, and very merry Christmas!! 

Someone's Having A Very "Big" Birthday!!

 There is a very special man in our lives that is having a very BIG birthday this weekend!!  And just like last year there is snow on the ground for his birthday.  (Not 30 inches like last year thank goodness!!)  But it didn't stop him from having a ton of fun with his favorite girl this weekend!!

 And a very special friend brought a very special treat from her bakery for our birthday boy (now can you tell what his BIG birthday # was???)  It's a cute little penguin w/ snowballs & tennis balls (due to the snow & Mike's love of tennis!!)  Thank you Heather!

Then, his "other special girl" took him out for a memorable dinner this weekend.  When I called in the reservations, I just happened to mention it was his birthday.  They made special menus for him & even came to the table to take our picture.  The wait-staff signed the card & we got the picture at the end of dinner. 

Happy Birthday to the most wonderful man I know!!  We thank God for you everyday!!!

Our Little Lamb

Last week the pre-school Anne Marie attends had their annual Christmas program.  This year they decided to have each of the kids participate in "The Christmas Story".  Anne Marie was originally supposed to be a dove (along with her friend Mira) but then there was a change in the schedule and she was asked to be a lamb.  The outfit was just tooo cute!  The "lamb hat" was a little "itchy" she said, and kind of distracted her during the program - but it made for a funny picture.  A little side note - my daughter's drawing was one of the ones chosen to be printed on the program.  They were asked to draw a story about Christmas.  Anne Marie drew a manger w/ baby Jesus & Mary & stars all around.....and....a menorah!  How funny is that?  They were talking about Hanukkah the day that they were asked to draw these pictures & I just found it funny that she added that to her drawing.

Out little cutie in her "normal" outfit!  She was glad to be back in normal clothes again!

A Big Accomplishment!!

This is what I saw when I walked into the living room this morning after asking Anne Marie to find her tennis shoes.  We were getting ready for pre-school, and I was brushing my teeth.  We were running a little behind, so I asked her to go find her shoes.  Well, when I came out to the living room I found my girl sitting on the floor just beaming from ear to ear!  She had tied her own shoes!!!  She's been asking to learn how to tie things, so we started with her baby Ling's dresses.  She's got quite good at it, but I have to say I figured learning to tie shoes was going to be a little more of a challenge since you're looking at it from a different direction...well, I guess I was wrong.  So I asked her to do the 2nd shoe so I could watch....

TaaaDaaa!

Begining To Look Alot Like Christmas!

 We have had our 1st snow of the season!  I've have now "caught" what Anne Marie had, so I was NOT going outside to play in this cold (COLD!!) mess, but we couldn't tell her no when she asked.  So Daddy was kind enough to bundle her (and himself) up and take her out to play.  We only had a slight amount (1" maybe) but it was enough to make a few snowballs & catch snowflakes on her tongue and run around in.    She just kept saying "I just love Christmas!"  I guess since last year we had tons of snow right around Christmas time she must think it's a requirement.

 With Christmas comes ginger-bread-house-building.  I bought one last year on clearance.  (It's not like we truly eat the candy off of it...we leave it out until Christmas for decoration.)  I got fresh m-n-m's to snack on while making our house.   It took 2 days because the icing had to dry.  We tried to make it in a day & ignore the directions, but mommy accidentally knocked the whole house over because it wasn't quite dry enough, so we got up the next day to finish it. 

We also brought out our advent calendar.  Each night Anne Marie gets to open a little door to the calendar.  And don't worry she NEVER lets us forget a night.  Tonight she was already being tucked into bed and since our night was very busy we had let it slip our minds, well, we had to get out of bed to go & open her door.  Most days it's something little & simple.  A hershey kiss, a few stickers, but this year I found a wooden necklace in the $1bins @ Targ*t.  It has a string and you get about 12 wooden beads and each bead has a picture of a farm animal on it.  She asked for this one day when we were at the store & I told her no, but then I thought how perfect it would be for the calendar.  Day #1 we put the necklace part.  And each day she opens the door she gets a new bead w/ a new animal on it.  She is loving this!

I just love all our little Christmas traditions we do.  I just want to make sure that we slow down during this month to take it all in and remember the real reason for this holiday!!

I've missed it!!

This was the 1st picture we saw when we opened the Fed-Ex package.

Oh how I wanted to post a blog-post about the day we saw our daughters face 4 years ago.  I wanted to talk about the excitement of that day.  I wanted to talk about the rainbow that was over the office I was working at at the EXACT moment her Fed-Ex package was delivered to my office.  I wanted to post pictures like we did last year of her holding her referral picture, and tell you how much we adore her & love her & how God is SO AWESOME!

But... I've been down & out over the last couple of  days.  Yesterday I had a temp of 103...and even though I'm starting to feel a little better, I"m still not ready to do much of anything! 

Just know that the 1st of December (and 30th of November) are VERY VERY special days in our household!!