Chinese New Year

Since our family has so many special little girls from China, it has become a tradition to have a Chinese New Year party. We also have some other family friends who have adopted from China so they also joined us. Lots of people, lots of food and lots of fun! We also were able to collect some money for TJ's cousin, Shane, who is preparing to go to China to live.

Just "part" of the food!

Desserts

Year of the Tiger Cake

All the kids

Our China Girls, but missing sweet Dalayna!
Left to right: Mavery, Eden (our pastor's daughter), Haddie & Hannah (friends) & Sage

Uncle Ray and Leighton

Poppy and the girls

Lyceum

Here is the first day of the new semester of our Lyceum classes with the St. Clair homeschool group. Adley was soooo excited because this semester she is three and can now take some classes. She has Kindercapers (Kind of a literature/activity class), a playtime and Wee Little Rest. She really loves it. Jaylyn has a Magic School Bus Science class, a playtime, Five-in-a-Row (Lit/activity class) and our Tapestry History Co-op class. She is also enjoying her classes. The Magic School Bus class is a definite favorite. It is kind of a crazy long day, but a lot of fun to be part of a group with so many other homeschool families.

Leighton is Nine Months Old

I was thinking the other day that Leighton must be doing some things like waving and saying, "hi" earlier than the other girls. But, I looked on the calendar and she is right along with them. I am just clueless and thinking she is still tiny and shouldn't be doing these things. If only I could slow these days down.
Her nine month tricks include:

• Waving and saying "hi" or "dye dye" instead of "bye bye"
• she is now officially crawling and not just scooting around backward and in circles
• She does her hands up high for "so big!"
• She loves to eat her baby food still and is also enjoy some new table foods
• She still loves her sisters
• She still smiles so big and is adored by everyone
• She will drink from a cup
• Pulls up to knees and sometimes feet
  
• Her hair is finally growing in "a little bit"
• She wants to stand up and walk around, but will settle for happily squealing while Jaylyn holds her up under the arms and drags her around. :-)
• She has also sat herself up from laying on the floor on her belly

Here she is doing her own gymnastics "bridge"!

Here is where I found her after she was crawling on her belly and then sat herself up to have a look in this basket.

This is fun!

Arts & Crafts Time

Because I have nothing better to do with my time (ha!) I have been doing little crafty things here and there. In fact, I have a few things I have started and not been able to finish yet. So, these things I am mentioning were all pretty much done in January or February. I can't explain it, but since the new year, I have been in a crafty mood. Apparently the same thing happened to Shannon because we both started doing little crafty projects about the same time. I think it is partially because we both seem to visit some of the same blogs and there are some super crafty ladies out there who have been posting some fun things. Some of them have been pretty inspiring lately with what they can make for almost no money. It can be addictive! :-) Although, with the amount of stuff these ladies craft, I'm just going to assume that they all must have nannies and cleaning ladies in order to fit all of their creative time in. Ha! I have not been able to do much lately (and apparently no blogging time either as you have probably noticed). It seems suddenly like I am back in the middle of the holidays again and it is just go, go, go!

Anyway, I just thought I would post a couple things that I have done. You saw the first wreath I made a while back here. I have also made another wreath for the door made with some left-over coordinating material from the curtain hanging there. And some burlap which is the big craze right now. Actually, I need to fix it now because the folds have started sliding down and I'm not sure about the bow part. I'm not sure that this is the most complementing picture either. But these burlap wreaths were on crafty blogs everywhere. I think they may have started here.

Jute stuff is also big, so I wrapped a styrofoam cone. These ladies are wrapping everything in jute. Here are a couple other people's cone trees here and here. I wasn't really using it as a Christmas craft, but Jaylyn does keep calling it a Christmas tree. :-) Here is mine.And, since Shannon and I seemed to be in a crafty mood at the same time, we decided to get together and tackle a craft project. She just posted about this on her blog here. You will find gobs of gals making these things called a "family rules canvas". I think it was started here. It was really fun - especially doing it together with our kids running around. :-) Actually they were really good and Makenna even pushed Leighton around in the stroller until she fell asleep!Our canvases and papers all ready. Deciding how to arrange . . .

Getting ready to stick them on and cover with Modge-podge.

Ta-da! I really liked how Shannon's turned out and she plans to do another one with Bible verses. fun! Mine was a little different than the "family rules". I changed mine to family values and used the values and target behaviors that tie in with those from a couple that does a ministry called http://www.valuesdrivenfamily.com/. I had to condense some of their descriptions for them to fit, but I like it.


Here is a wall art piece I kind of threw together. It is just a picture I printed off the on the computer and attached onto some foam board. And in this picture, it looks like I can see some nice finger prints. Hmmmmmm. . . .
And another popular project - silhouettes. These I did rather quickly with some scrapbook paper as the background and brown paper for the faces. Although, I will need to replace them eventually since I don't think my brown paper was fade-resistant as my dear cousin Amber reminded me about. But, I did want to add a few touches to them anyway. I liked how some people have added a bow or something to the silhouettes. Anyway, these are a start.And if you are in a sewing kind of mood, you can join my friend Mitzi who read Noell Piper's blog and decided to join a Sewing for Haiti project where they are sewing pillowcase dresses and cloth diapers for an organization in Haiti that helps orphanges, etc. If you are not into sewing, Noell and Mitzi both provide information on some other items they need that you can buy from Walmart online and do a ship from site to store to the contact lady who will get them to the orphans. Awesome! Mitzi's site is here. Noell's site is here. Mitzi even posted her first pillow case dress she made.

And a forgotten thanks to my also crafty cousin Amber who I forgot to mention in my post about the birthday cakes. She always helps me big time when I am doing the birthday parties. She is great at helping me brainstorm and think through these cake ideas and then she helps me make and ice them too! Woohoo!!

So, go get crafty and pray I can have some more spare moments to craft some more! :-)

Official

Rich and Monte FINALLY got their final approval after all of the drama with the Kaz. courts. They still have to come back and wait for some other paperwork stuff, but hopefully they will soon get to bring her home!

Prayers

We have more friends in the process of adoption. This time, our friends Rich & Monte are adopting from Kazakhstan. Let me tell you, it sounds like the Kazak process is just awful! They have been there once and are there now. They are having trouble with the courts. It just seems like the courts are just giving them trouble for the fun of it. I don't really know, but they were supposed to grant them permission this week and are putting it off and now Rich & Monte have to leave again and pray their adoption coordinator can represent them well and get it taken care of. I know they are just heartbroken at this latest news. Please lift them up in your prayers. Their little girl Nina is just a couple months older than Leighton and needs to be home with them! She is adorable. You can check out their story at http://thelockwoodladandlassies.blogspot.com
(**Edit*** Their agency has now asked them to make their blog private.)

Eight Month Old Cutie!

We are on to 8 months! Our very playful and smiley girl is a true blessing. She gets around (not forward!) but backwards and all around. She loves to talk and squeal and laugh as most 8 month olds do. She studies everything very intently. Her favorite sound right now is "Da-da" of course and often sounds like she is repeating us when we say, "Hi!". So cute!

Amusing Sisters

Here is a clip of the girls making Leighton giggle. Sometimes it doesn't take much! :-)

Some Updates!

I have been off for a while. Sorry to those who may have been waiting. . . mostly grandparents. :-)

Ice Skating
We have joined a few families from our church at ice skating lessons for 5 weeks in Cahokia. (Next week is actually the last one.) Adley is really a year too young, but they did let her try the first day. The skates were too big, but she wanted to try anyway. She enjoys roller skating and was imagining that they would have a "little rink" for her. She did alright for a three year old. :-) She tried it and then she was finished and hasn't been upset that she doesn't get to skate during Jaylyn's lesson. She is content playing while the bigger kids are out there. Jaylyn has been doing well. She stays out there the whole time and tries to skate without holding on to the wall. She seems to really like it. Today she actually skated backward.

Adley giving it a try!

Jaylyn's first time out

Gymnastics
Jaylyn has also continued to enjoy gymnastics with Ms. Sheila! Of course, I don't know if part of the enthusiasm is because it is a class with Malaine. :-) She really is flexible and is getting better and better. She is doing things that I remember not being able or willing to do. Now Adley has joined in. Adley is SOOOO excited each week to go. She especially is in love with her leotards. Even though it is freezing in the gym when we get there, she immediately dresses down to her leotard, puts her stuff in the cubbies and she will NOT wear her pants over the leotard.

Adley enjoys doing her back bend.

Jaylyn can do her back bend all by herself now and kick her legs over.

Here is Leighton enjoying her playtime at gymnastics. :-)

Leighton's curl and teeth
Leighton's bottom two teeth have come in. She definitely had some crabbiness right before they popped through, but once they were through, she was back to her very happy self. Everyone has also been asking if her hair is going to be curly or not. (I'm sure they are not really asking me as if I somehow know the future. Hee Hee!) But, now that her hair is finally starting to come in (although still barely there), I now have a guess. . . .

Look closely to see her "curl" ha!

I didn't get a picture of her teeth, but it was a cute smile

She has lots of expressions

Biter Biscuits - a yummy mess. Doesn't she look like she is enjoying those?

You have to REALLY get it good and gooey!

And then suck on it some more while mommy has to keep me from gagging myself.