Birthday Weekend, Part Two!

Abby got to enjoy a 2nd weekend of birthday celebrations, as she had a party with her friends on Saturday at the place where she takes tumbling! They had a great time and burned off a lot of energy ... they had full run of the place with the tumble track, trampolines, bounce castle and an 18' slide. They stopped once to do the Cha-Cha Slide when the song came on, and those who didn't already know how sharpened their cartwheel skills. It was fun
Afterwards it was to the upstairs observation room for cupcakes and gifts. They were so well behaved and cute!

My niece sang with the IMEA All State Choir in Peoria yesterday, and we got to share a meal with them before dashing off to TJ's double-header basketball game. Good game for TJ until he was fouled and hit the floor/wall and bruised up his shoulder. He's sore this morning, but luckily no major injuries.

Drew is home this weekend since he has a short break between their J-Term (January minimester) and the start of Spring Term next week. Great to have him here to share some time with us!

Happy 7th Birthday, Abby!!

Today is the big "7" for Abby! She has been so excited to see this birthday come, and has been crossing off the days since the calendar changed to January!

She has had a fun-filled weekend ... starting yesterday with THS Cheer Clinic for the grade school girls all morning. They learned a cheer routine and will perform at half time of the boys JV game this Friday night.

After TJ's basketball game yesterday, she requested dinner from her fave birthday dinner spot ... Chevy's! Celebrations are fun there with ice cream, singing, clapping and a sombrero to take home! I think we have a couple dozen of those sombreros in the play room, as all of our kids enjoy a Chevy's birthday! ha

Today she was up for her favorite breakfast ... a sausage, egg & green pepper casserole. After breakfast it was time to open presents, and she was excited to see her new "Madeline" book, paper doll book and doll. She's such an avid reader that you just can't go wrong with books with this girl!

The rest of her presents were the next favorite thing ... bling! A headband with rhinestones, a dress with sparkles, and some pink pearl earrings and she is set!

Now we're off to TJ's Sunday afternoon game. Along with dinner, we'll have the "birthday cookie and ice cream" that Abby requested instead of cake. I made a pan chocoloate chip cookie and we have it cut into the shape of a "7", ready to go! It has been a fun weekend, and I'm happy to have had the time to wind down and relax after being in Vegas all last week! Back to work and school tomorrow, the real world strikes again! ha ha

Haiti

UPDATED 1-16-10: MIKE IS HOME!! Check his mom's blog in the link below for more details, but kudos to the US Air Force for getting citizens back on American soil.
----------

Thinking of a friend whose son is in Haiti teaching this year, and the helplessness they feel being here and wondering how he's doing. They have heard from him and he's ok, but the situation is so fragile there right now that of course there are worries.

Send some good thoughts and prayers Mike's way. And you can see how things are going here on his mom's BLOG. Even though their last name is Scott like ours, we're not related ... we just accidentally found each other in 2002 during our China adoption journeys due to an agency paperwork mix up, and have remained friends since!

Snow Day!

Looks like we got about 8 inches of new white stuff on top of the 6-7ish inches we already had! Thought it had stopped earlier but it's snowing again. WHEE! Home today with the kiddos enjoying a snow day. Abby and I just finished her January book report project, and she's enjoying the morning in her jammies, watching PBS! haha

Family Day!

Six years ago today, on the other side of the world ... in a hotel elevator lobby in Changsha, Hunan ... we were given the precious gift of our daughter. It was a whirlwind of emotion. Thinking back, it is a pretty surreal experience to have someone just hand you an 11-month old child who is suddenly yours. But we could not love her any more if she were born to us.

Abby cried at first, and then was pretty solemn most of our time in China. Today she is a happy and such a beautiful child. Hard to imagine life without a little girl in it. Hard to imagine life without a grade school daughter to keep us on our toes! Hard to imagine not having experienced the joy of growing our family through adoption.

Happy family day Abigail Kui Yan! Our trip journal is here, Our Beautiful Sunflower

Happy New Year!

The first few days of 2010 have been good to us ... pretty cold here, but it won't last too long. Hey, only 10 weeks until spring break! :-)

Drew headed back to college and starts classes tomorrow, and the kids both head back to school tomorrow as well. Back to work for mama after taking some time off for the holidays, too!

We got back into the 6th grade basketball routine this weekend with 3 games. TJ (#22 in picture) loves to play and have the whole team experience! He made a 3-pointer today, woo hoo! Happy 2010!