10 Month Update

10 months ago today this was our family meeting for the first time...

And now, here we are together on Lily's third birthday...

What a difference for all 3 of us these last 10 months!  It seems like we've been together longer than 10 months.  It's hard to remember what it was like before Lily.  She just fits in with us so well that it seems like she's been here much longer.  Lily has so much love to give and we are so happy that we are her family for her to share that with!

A few things about Lily for now:

 She is the sweetest, caring little girl.  She likes to share with us and will give us something to eat and say, "Good?" and then be ready to share more.

We are potty training!  Woo hoo!

  

Lily loves to be busy.  She likes parks, playing with her dolls and stuffed animals, toys and play dough.  She recently has started to set the tables around the house with play food and dishes for her dolls/animals.

Lily likes to sing.  I love hearing her around the house singing.  She will say, "Sing with me" sometimes and other times, "No, no singing Mommy"!

She likes to have her milk and watch TV in the morning.

She likes books.  She likes for you to read to her and she also likes to "read".  I saw her the other day sitting on the couch with her books and retelling the story we had read earlier from the pictures.

Lily is enjoying school twice a week.  The transition to school and picking up on school days has been going really well lately.

She loves M&Ms which she calls jelly beans.

A blue "jelly bean"

Lily makes us laugh and smile A LOT!!  It's pretty funny because if she makes us laugh, that makes her start laughing!

Lily is working on counting.  Lately though she's been counting 1, 2, 3, 7, 8, 9, 10.  I asked her the other day what happened to 4, 5 and 6.  She said they got lost!  See what I mean about making us laugh?!?!

We are so thankful for this little girl!  She needed a family and we needed her.  The past 10 months we have all learned so much about each other.  Most importantly, we have learned how to love each other!

10 months ago we made the best decision ever and this little one completed our family!

Thanksgiving

We are ready to celebrate Lily's first Thanksgiving.  At the top of my list of things to be thankful for is this:

Love my family and am so happy the three of us found each other!

So very thankful our little one is here this year to celebrate with us!

Love this family too!

Life Lately!

Life lately has been keeping us busy and having lots of fun!  Life with a 3 year old is never boring and each day is always new.  You just never know how it'll go!

  Michael's schedule has been a bit different lately since he's in Captain upgrade training...yahoo!!  He has been home lately though since this part of the training is in Houston.  So while he's been gone for part of the days for training, he's also had quite a bit of time at home and we love that.

I'll let some pictures catch you up on what we've been up to:

A playdate with her classmates to the local fire station

Such a cute firefighter!

Putting her stuffed animals out one day.  She kept saying, "I have so many"!

Lily likes to "read" and show the book like her teacher at school

More reading one day

A little static electricity in a tunnel at the playground

Helping Daddy roll out some pizza dough

LOVES to help in the kitchen!

Gracie likes to stay close as you can see

Putting her animals to bed and telling me to be quiet.  Lily loves using the new blankets she recently received covering up all her dolls and animals!  

Asleep on the way home from school one day

A little iPad time along with a new puppy from her birthday

A little bike ride one day

My morning view the other day - one view that I'll never get tired of

Heading to school last week for her feast

Lily's placemat.  Yes, I did tear up when I saw this. 

Feasting

All her little people lined up and ready

An afternoon coffee at the coffee shop.  Lily will now ask to go to the coffee shop - and who am I to not grant her the one little wish?!?!?  A coffee for Mommy and a lemonade and treat for Lily - it's a win, win!

Another day, another park.  I am so glad we live in a place where there are so many parks within a few minutes from where we live.  Lily is always up for some playing and climbing.  Our weather lately has been perfect that we rarely go a day where we don't get in at least one park visit. 

Peeling her banana at the park one day.  As she says, "I do it all myself".  Love that independence.

Another favorite view

Lily is very helpful at cleaning up and getting ready to go

So, that's our life lately.  Busy, fun, silly and tiring but I love all of it!  I know from everyone that these years go by all too quickly so I'm trying to enjoy it all and capture all the moments I can.

Gymnastics Fun

Lily loves going to gymnastics once a week and this was something I couldn't wait for her to do.  I was hoping she would enjoy it and guess what?  She does!  At least she loves the running and jumping around for 45 minutes.

A little "photo" shoot before class.  A little sucker for a snack before we left never hurt anybody.

Her hair is growing!

Love the back of this leotard

 We've been going to a "Mommy and Me" class which is fun but entails me chasing after her a lot of the time!  Well, now she's in a "real" class!  This means I'm not in there chasing her around anymore.  I now get 45 minutes to sit on the bench and watch her through the windows with the other Moms.  I love it because I get to see Lily from a different perspective.

Sitting and listening (for a moment)

Warming up

A little meeting with the teacher after warm up

There's been so much progress in Lily's strength and physical abilities since our Gotcha Day in January.  While we were in China, she did such little walking.  In fact at one point, we wondered if she really could walk but then remembered that she did walk in to meet us while holding her nanny's hand.  When she did walk with us though, she definitely wasn't very steady or sure of herself.  The park visits and gymnastics have really helped her in this area.  She's getting much stronger and confident in herself with things likes sliding, jumping, swinging and running.

How cute is she standing on her star during a warm up?!?

A little gymnastics fun video:

Just makes me smile to watch her during class!

We Have a 3 Year Old!

So excited to turn 3!!!!!!!!!!!

Lily has been working hard on telling people she is 2 and holding up 2 fingers.  Just as she got that down,  now she needs to work on saying she's 3! We had a great time celebrating this very special birthday.  This was her first birthday party and it was a day that was all about her!

I'm not sure who was more excited about this birthday - me or Lily!  The celebration started off with cupcakes at school with Lily's class.  This was the first time that I spent any amount of time in the class and let me tell you, those are the ten cutest 2/3 year olds ever!

A birthday crown for Lily

She got so tickled when her class began to sing Happy Birthday to her!

Mmmm....

On the way home.  Celebrating at school can wear one out!

For me?

A bouquet of balloons for the birthday girl

Yea for me!

Dinner was one of Lily's favorite - my homemade spaghetti sauce.  Bonny and "Bobert" came over and we ate, then opened presents and followed that up with cake.  Lily loved opening up all her presents.  She now has some new toys that aren't all chewed up by Gracie and Roxi.  So far, we've been doing a good job and picking them up before we leave or go to bed at night.

A team effort on assembly

Jump, jump, jump

First time to see a candle on a cake!

I think she had a great day and like all kids, she now knows how to enjoy her birthday.  She may have missed her first two birthdays but she won't miss anymore!  We are so glad that we got to be the ones to share her first birthday party with her.