Michelle through the months

July

June

May

April

March

February

January

6 months ago today

We became a family. It's hard to believe it's been six months since we held our precious Michelle for the first time. The time has gone by so quickly. Our baby has grown and changed so much. We're constantly amazed by her. She's blossomed so much since we've been home. She seemed to realize that this was her home right away and she seemed to relax and open up to us very quickly. She's become a sweet, loving, gentle, thoughtful, generous, silly, funny, smart little girl.

Summer Fun

Those of you who know me well know that I've never been a big fan of summer. I hate to be hot and I'm terrified of bees and wasps (basically anything that flies and has a stinger). I always try to stay indoors as much as possible in the air conditioning and pray for an early fall. I never thought I'd enjoy summer until now. Now that we have our princess I'm suddenly loving summer. Michelle loves being outside. We're getting out and exploring and going to the beach all the time. Michelle is having a wonderful time and seeing her happy gives me more joy than anything else ever has. I love to see her squeal with delight when we wade in the water at the beach or holding her face up to feel a cool breeze on a hot summer day.

Below are some pictures of our latest outings.

Pretty Princess

Michelle's birthday is next month and we're very excited. We're going to have a big party for her in SA with our friends and family. We wanted to send out a picture with the invitations so we got her all dressed up in a princess outfit and took her to the photographer. She wanted nothing to do with the whole experience. She didn't want to smile or wear the crown or hold the wand. Of course the pictures were adorable since they were of Michelle but we didn't get a single happy picture of her. Later when we got home, she pulled the crown and wand out of the bag and wanted to put the skirt on. She was a very happy princess who was happy to pose for the camera. Have you ever seen such a pretty princess?

Happy 4th of July! I hope everyone had a wonderful day, especially those of you celebrating your first July 4th with your new daughters.

We were originally planning to spend the day at the beach but Mother Nature had other plans. It was cool and rainy this morning so we quickly made a plan B and it was great. We heard about a Chinese exhibit at the Children's Museum so we decided to check it out. It was our first time taking Michelle to the Children's Museum and we were really excited about it. The Chinese exhibit, called The Children of Hangzhou, was a little smaller than we were expecting but it was nice. Michelle was very interested in the abacus but nothing else impressed her very much. She liked the construction exhibit a lot. That was fun. The museum was very crowded so we only spent a couple of hours there and then we took a nice walk along the harbor. Michelle loves being near water so she enjoyed that a lot. We ended our day with red, white and blue cupcakes. Michelle really enjoyed those. It was a very nice day. Sometimes Plan B turns out to be much better than the original plan.

Make a Smilebox scrapbook

Getting ready to celebrate

This July 4th has a special meaning for us since it's Michelle's first as a new American. She has three outfits for the occasion so she's been wearing them for the past couple of days to get in the spirit. To the untrained eye, three outfits for one holiday may seem excessive but, hey, how many times does a girl celebrate her first 4th of July?

Looking pretty in outfit 1

Trying out her light-up wand

30 seconds later

Outfit 2

Outfit 2 complete with American Princess bib.

Sweetest girl in the world

Roman and I ask ourselves each day how we got so lucky and so blessed to be Michelle's parents. She's truly the sweetest little girl in the world. Don't get me wrong. She can be a big stinker when she wants to be but most of the time she's sweet, loving, affectionate and generous. She loves to give us hugs and kisses every day and she always shares her food with us. She was eating ice cream one day and wanted to share with Dada so she got a spoonful and walked across the room to feed him. She even walked with her hand under the spoon to keep from spilling it.

I love picking her up from daycare. She runs over to me with the biggest smile and throws her arms around me, pats me and says "Mama." It's the sweetest thing. Then she has to say goodbye to her classmates. She says "buh bye" and blows kisses to everyone in the room. Then she goes over to her two closest friends and gives them hugs. It's the cutest thing. She takes my hand and leads me out the door. When I put her in the carseat, before I get her buckled in, she leans against me and gives me another big hug and looks up at me with adoring eyes. I ask her if she wants to go pick up Dada and she nods excitedly and picks her up her toy cellphone and starts calling Dada.

She's also very smart. We only have to say a word to her once and she remembers it. We have some flash cards and we lay out 4 at a time telling her what each picture is. Then we say the name of each one and ask her to point them out and she gets them right over 90% of the time.

She can say some new words. She can say:
Tree
Stairs (she's still working on this one but she's almost got it)
Up
Door
Please
More
Cow
Car
Yum yum yum
Me
Dat - that
Dis - this

Below is some random cuteness for your enjoyment.