Happy Year of the Rat!

OK, it's been way too long since our my last post, I know... I promise to get some England/Christmas photos posted very soon. I just couldn't wait to post some photos of the FCC Chinese New Year party that we attended last night. Lily LOVED it!! She talked about the party all day and couldn't wait to put on her new pretty purple dress (which we bought in China). Besides looking beautiful in her outfit, she was just so happy to be at the party. She danced (tried to get on stage a couple of times), chased the dragon during the dragon dance, ate about 15 fortune cookies and best of all (for her) won a raffle prize basket filled with toys and books from Gymboree play and music. We bought her a couple of books about Chinese New Year and as I was reading them to her last night before bedtime, she kept stopping me to recap the party and to tell me "I from China, mommy". She continues to amaze us each day and we love her so much.

Happy New Year!

Andrea, Daren and Lily

We're off to England!

This Christmas we hope Santa remembers to stop off in England because that's where we'll be this year. We leave Saturday and will spend two weeks with "Nana" and "Bapa" Brayson. It will be a long journey with a very active little someone with us (hint...not Daren). I've been picking up little toys and activities over the past several months to keep her occupied in addition to packing lots of snacks and of course the portable DVD player and many movies. Her favortie movie right now is Polar Express, because of her fascination with choo choo trains and Santa. She keeps telling me "Santa's coming" everyday and can sing Jingle Bells. She's really into Christmas this year, which is really cool. We're driving up to Seattle and then will fly non-stop to London, which is nice. The flight is 9.5 hours, which is shorter than when we came back from China. We purposely booked an evening flight so hopefully she sleeps!

Anyway, I realize I haven't been very good about posting photos lately. Attached are some photos of Lily's daycare on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. Daddy went to her school to have Thanksgiving lunch with Lily, which was a lot of fun for both of them. Also photos of our trip to the Oregon Zoo for Zoo Lights.

Happy Holidays to our friends and family! Talk to you again in 2008!

Photos from the beach house

To celebrate mommy's birthday and mommy and daddy's 12th anniversary, we went to the coast for a long weekend. Uncle Julian, Brandy, Jenn and Daisy joined us and fun was had by all!

Girl's Weekend!

Cyn and the girls came up to visit us this weekend and we had a great time! Thanks to Sandy for the cute matching hats you knittted. We went to the zoo, went out for pizza, watched movies and played, played played. Lily did a great job sharing all her toys.

JOH Picnic

Yesterday we attended our adoption agency's annual picnic. Lily had a great time, despite not wanting to eat her lunch.

Our family's 1 year anniversary

Last week we celebrated one year together as a family! On September 4th, we picked up Lily early from daycare, played at the park (at her request), went to the toy store to buy her first baby doll (which she insisted we open in the store), and went out to dinner so Lily could enjoy french fries and vanilla ice cream for dinner. All in all, it was the perfect way to celebrate the best year of our lives!

Here's an excerpt from a posting I made to one of our yahoo groups on September 4th:

One Year Ago Today...

...We were in our room at the Green Lake Hotel pacing back and forth, staring at the clock and triple checking our backpack to make sure we had everything

...We taped a short video message to our daughter that we were about to meet telling her that even though we had never met her, we loved her so much already

...We rode in the taxi to the civil affairs office as our guide talked non-stop about how important the paperwork was, what was going to happen, etc. etc. and we just looked at each other silently with nervous smiles

...We sat on a black leather sofa in the civil affairs office and suddenly became aware of how acute our hearing had become as we listened with anticipation for any doors opening, babies crying or voices speaking

...I became a mother

...My husband became a father

...Our daughter met her parents for the first time

...We became a family

What a year!Happy Family Day to us!

Andrea DH-Daren DD-Lilian Rui Zhen (b. 12-4-05, a. 9-4-06), Kunming CWI

A fun photo of Lily and Daddy at the local fountain. Lily is having a fun summer and spending a lot of time outside. She doesn't seem to have any fear at the playground and actually will hold unto the monkey bars and swing all by herself (with a very cautious mommy right below her). As a matter fact she now prefers to do most things all by herself and will let us know about it. As Daddy likes to say, "she's a little bugger". We have made our travel plans for our trip to England for Christmas and went a couple of weeks ago to apply for Lily's passport. As summer wraps up, we have friends and family coming up to spend the next two weekends with us. Should be a lot of fun!

Enjoy the rest of your summer!

Andrea, Daren and Lily