Chinese New Year

Dear Family and Friends,

OK! I know now that I'm never going to get caught up on my posting so I just need to get over it and move on!

Let's just do the quick version... Christmas was great - Sophie really got into the opening packages thing but is still more interested in playing with my pots, pans and plastic containers than she is with her toys!

New Year's Day was uneventful since I had to work that day.

We completed our final post placement visit for China! That means no more visits from the social worker - something we are actually quite sad about since she has become such an important part of our lives. We hope to be able to keep in touch from time to time. Sophie will get one more chance to visit with her when we go to court next month to complete the re-adoption process here in the Commonwealth.

OK -that's it for the update - now the current things.

Happy Chinese New Year to everyone! This is now the Year of the Ox. We have done some decorating and had a fun party here on Saturday. This was originally planned as our Christmas party for friends from church, but had to post pone it when we got those storms in December. I made sweet and sour chicken, fake "chicken fried rice" (made it regular rather than fried), mini egg rolls, pot sticker wontons and we had fortune cookies! Everyone seemed to enjoy it and I hope to continue the tradition annually. I need to look at Oriental Trading for some bargains to plan for next year.

I'll post some new pictures soon.

Blessings,
Chinamom and Sophie

A year ago today...

Dear Family and Friends,

Breaking away from my goal of catching you up with life, I wanted to take a minute to celebrate our first Forever Family Day! It was a year ago today that I met my daughter in China for the first time.

I can't believe it's been a year already. She has grown and developed so much. She is nothing like the little waif I brought home. She is now a bundle of energy who talks up a storm.

We celebrated tonight with my family. We had a great Chinese meal and reminisced about what it was like a year ago. Sophie is such a perfect fit to my family. I am truly blessed to have her with me.

Blessings,
Chinamom and Sophie

"Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above and cometh down from the Father of lights." James 1:17

And now, for the weather........

Dear Family and Friends,

As I promised, I am trying to bring everyone up to date on the last month or so, since I was so awful about writing.

December was a very difficult month for those of us in New England. In the early morning hours of Friday the 12th, much of the Northeast was treated to nearly an inch of freezing rain. While most of the time, when we get ice storms, it's only about a quarter of an inch or so that covers the trees. As we came to find out, trees cannot take the pressure of anything over about 1/2 inch of ice. That night was spooky.

My condo complex is really in the woods. That night all you could hear were trees cracking and falling to the ground. We lost power at about 1:30 AM Friday morning. I was very fortunate to get my power back on Sunday afternoon - that's right, it took 3 days to get it back. My sister, who lives a mere 5 miles from me, was without power for a week. They got power back late Thursday the 18th. She and her kids stayed with me while my brother in law tried to keep the house warm with a fire place to keep the water pipes from freezing.

Although it was difficult not having the conveniences of electricity, it was amazing how creative people got in coming up with ways to cook a meal. Those with gas stoves did OK, or if you had a gas grill with a full tank, but others - like me- only had an electric grill. Not much luck when you have no power! I got some chafing dishes and sterno and was able to boil veggies and chicken for dinner one night.

The area was devastated with so many trees and power lines down. They had power crews in from all over the East coast as well as Ohio and Kentucky to help us get back power. A month later, you still see huge trees in yards. This is primarily because we no sooner finished with the clean up from the ice when we were socked with a big snow storm. We got about a foot of snow at my house. This was the first real white Christmas we have had in decades!

Here are some pictures from the storms for you to see...

The tree in the picture on the left missed this house by only about 3-4 feet. The picture on the right shows power lines just dangling....

My back yard with a foot of new snow.....

Well, that's it for the weather.....of course we have had yet another storm last weekend and it looks like a dusting or more for tonight..... OK - I've had enough snow to last me the rest of the winter!

Sigh.

Blessings,

Chinamom and Sophie

Biting the Bullet

Dear Family and Friends,

If you haven't given up on my ever writing on my blog, thanks for hanging in there! There has been so much going on in the last month or so that I don't know where to begin. I had great ideas of sitting down for an afternoon and creating entry after entry to catch everyone up, but it got too overwhelming. So now, I decided to start from the beginning, and work my way up to the New Year, one painful session at a time!!! LOL!

I'll start with Sophie's birthday. She is now officially two years old! We celebrated the event on Thanksgiving Day with an awesome Elmo cake that a friend of mine at work made! She loved it. My parents and my sisters were there with my brother in law and a niece and nephew. She was able to blow out the candles but wasn't particularly interested in eating any of the cake. She has a very selective sweet tooth - something for which I am eternally grateful! (just wish I could be as strong as my daughter when it comes to that stuff!!)






















Around that time, Sophie had her first of three encounters with a certain man who likes to wear a red suit! I wasn't sure how she would do but she wasn't afraid at all and went right up to him. She also loved the elves and I'm convinced she might want to try out for that role one day!

She also had an encounter with The Grinch!

That's all I have time for tonight, I'll try to post more soon.

Blessings,

Chinamom and Sophie