Just like we do every year, we spent Easter Sunday with Matt's family at my in-law's house. A good time was had by all :-)
I forgot to change the battery in my camera, so all I have are some fuzzy phone pictures...
This is the newest addition to the family. She's so cute and girly and I loved feeding and cuddling her.
Matt and our grandson. Love them both!
Time to hunt for eggs!
Sisters!
Time for a cookie:
Each year I struggle to come up with a small token of appreciation for the teachers and some of the other staff members at school. I always chip in money for the class gift, but I like for the girls to give a little something to their teachers as well. Pinterest came to my rescue! So many great ideas on the site!
I bought a bunch of soap at Bath & Body Works. We printed out tags with the words: "Wishing you a holiday season full of joy, love and hope soap"...
Jazzie signed the tags and wrapped them around the soap bottles:
Cute, no?
The original post where I got this idea is here.
You can find the printable for the tags here.
Today is St. Nicholas Day. I have vivid memories of celebrating this holiday as a child in Holland. We would get lots of presents and the night before, we would put out our shoe and find goodies in it the following day. We would always get our initial in chocolate and I have continued this tradition with my girls. They love it :-)
Sleepover and Halloween Party with friends on Saturday...
And pumpkin carving on Sunday...
And this last one cracks me up. A piece of pumpkin went flying just as I took the picture ;-)
The darn leprechauns left foam shamrocks and green streamers ALL over the house, but they also left us some yummy rainbow cupcakes, so I will overlook the mess they made ;-)
Here are the girls all decked out in their green, right before school:
Can you tell that it's love???
After being of antibiotics for two days, Tahlia got sick again over the weekend and ended up staying home from school today. Luckily she had her Valentine's Day party at school on Friday, so she didn't really miss anything.
Jazzie had her party today and was excited and ready to go this morning. I had hoped for a picture of me with both of my girls this morning, but with Tahlia not feeling well, it just didn't work out.
However, we went back to the doctor this morning and Tahlia got a stronger anti-biotic. It was amazing how fast she perked up after that first dose. She is acting like her old goofy self again and she was SO excited when Jazzie brought her homework home for her after school:-)
We are definitely back on the up swing.
Tahlia had her Valentine's Party at school today. We dressed to match ;-)
Daddy's Valentine:
Some pictures of our special dinner last night:
Jazzie cooked the long noodles:
I love dumplings!
A special occasion calls for green tea from a special teapot - bought while we were in Guangzhou:
Enough goofiness ;-)
Spreading some oatmeal for the reindeer:
A bedtime snack of milk and pumpkin pie:
And some for Santa, too:
Opening presents:
Trying to look pretty and showing off her new earrings:
But back to her normal goofy self really quickly:
Cera and John got Jazzie the complete collection of Roald Dahl books. She's in heaven ;-)
Excuse Alex' tired looking face. He drove all night from Chicago to get here for Christmas :-)
Cera made Tahlia a sling for her baby doll, so she could carry her just like Cera carries baby J.
I hope everyone had a very merry Christmas!
We celebrated Christmas with Matt's family today. Such a great day...
We just love our grandbaby!
Every year the PTO holds a pancake breakfast at the girls' school. The pancakes are cooked by the principal, there are crafts and Santa always pays a visit :-)
After the girls told Santa what they wanted, my crazy husband jumped right up and told Santa what he wanted.
Hmmm... I wonder what it could be?
Normally I do not like to put up the Christmas so early in December, but the girls were really excited about it and begged me to put it up. We did our "China tree" first. We set up a small tree in our kitchen every year that we decorate with ornaments that I purchased in China. This small tree is in honor of the girls' birth parents.
And last night we set up our big tree.
So now the house is all ready for Christmas. If only I could say the same about my shopping...
Wow, it is so quiet in the house! After a long weekend filled with family, it is back to the daily grind again. We had a wonderful Thanksgiving this year. Matt's side of the family was here on Thanksgiving Day and the rest of the time we spent with Alex and Winnie who came down from Chicago and with Cera, John and baby J.
It was awesome having ALL the kids here. It doesn't happen very often that our entire family is together, so Matt and I enjoyed having them all here. I just kept telling Matt how great it was to have everyone together. The fact that there was a grandbaby made it that much more special :-)
The kids:
I was thrilled to be able to take a group picture of all of us. However, that picture will remain a secret since it will be used for the Christmas card.
“The bond that links your true family is not one of blood, but of respect and joy in each other's life.” - Richard Bach
Tahlia decided to start the day off with a good breakfast by having some eggs and orange juice from a fancy glass :-)
After lunch we were ready to go to our annual street Halloween party:
Decorating cookies and making candy necklaces in our neighbor's garage:
Mummy wrap:
Pumpkin waddle race:
Candy toss from the deck:
After a quick dinner it was time to get dressed for Trick or Treat:
I will be posting pictures of the girls in their costumes some time tomorrow. I know that a lot of communities are doing Trick-or Treat tonight, but where we live it's not until tomorrow. We will have our neighborhood Halloween party for the kids tomorrow afternoon and then we will get ready for Trick-or-Treat after dinner. The girls are just a wee bit excited ;-)
To get into the spirit, I thought I'd post some pictures from Halloweens past, staring with last year:
Sprinkling the seeds with cinnamon-sugar before roasting:
After the girls searched for their Easter baskets (which the Easter Bunny hid in their bath tub!), Alex who was in town for Easter, whipped up some yummy crepes:
After that we headed to Matt's parents' house to celebrate Easter with the entire family. Some pictures:
Jazzie and her great-grandmother:
Looking at old pictures:
Jazzie and Alex:
Tahlia popping bubbles on Alex' girlfriend Winnie's i-phone:
Tahlia and cousin Jake:
Eating Jell-O eggs:
Jazzie and her youngest cousin, Skyler:
After the big Easter egg hunt:
Tahlia feeding Skyler (so cute!!!)
Our gang:
For the past six years we have gotten together with our friends so that the kids can paint Easter eggs. It's a tradition we all love!
Both girls were so excited about St. Patrick's Day. Tahlia in particular has been talking about for days and must have reminded me 50 times that she needed to wear green today so that the leprechaun wouldn't pinch her ;-)
Even Jazzie got dressed for the occasion and asked to wear a pony tail, which she NEVER does!
She must have been inspired by Tahlia's hair ribbons ;-)
The leprechauns made quite a mess of our kitchen, leaving green confetti all over the counters. The girls were quite surprised by it :-)
Then as I was taking pictures of them, apparently a leprechaun appeared on my shoulder:
Don't you just love the look of shock on Jazzie's face?
Tahlia decided to blow him off:
And then got shy and scared while Jazzie thought the whole situation was hysterical:
Yes, I've got some good little actresses here!
Since I am not sure when I'll have a computer again, I thought I'd play catch up and share some pictures of what has been happening here in the past couple of weeks.
Tahlia decided to go "diving" in the tub:
Filling the Lucky Money envelopes with chocolate coins for their friends at school:
The girls all ready to go to school for Chinese New Year:
It was my turn to volunteer in Jazzie's classroom that day, so I was able to get pictures of her handing out her lucky money envelopes:
Jazzie and her teacher:
As I mentioned before, Matt and I went to the Ohio Valley Voices Gala on Saturday and when the girls saw me curling my hair, they wanted curls as well:
Can you believe I did not take any "after" pictures? The curls didn't stay in long anyway. Their hair is way too smooth and shiny to hold curls, I guess.
Here are a few pictures of Matt and myself taken in a photo booth at the party on Saturday ;-)
(I really didn't do the best job of taking a picture of the picture, but I really like these!)
Man, I miss my computer! I am using Matt's right now, but it's not the same as having my own right there for me whenever I want it to be. We did look at computers today. The question now is: do we get a Dell or do we break down and spend the $$$ on a Mac???
Whatever we end up getting, I hope I get it soon!
Happy Chinese New Year...
(I had full intentions of making these, but since I felt so lousy I didn't. However, next year I am SO making them!)
Let's sweep the bad luck away!
And Happy Valentine's Day, too :-)
The girls melted my heart this morning by offering to unload the dishwasher without being asked!
The girls do not have school tomorrow or Monday, so we have a four day weekend on our hands. Both girls had their Valentine's Day party at school today, so they dressed in their Valentine best.
I feel really bad about not being able to do much with the girls right now because I am still feeling pretty rough. However, Matt drove me to school today so that I could be at their parties. I didn't do much as far as helping out, but at least I was there. Tahlia's party was first.
The kids started out by putting their Valentines in their friends' boxes. It was a great writing and reading exercise for the kids. Notice Tahlia's new haircut. Isn't it sassy?
Time to decorate the cupcakes!
With lots of sprinkles and icing of course!
After lunch it was time for Jazzie's party. And since Tahlia is only in Kindergarten in the morning, she got to come as well.
Picking out a prize after Valentine Bingo:
Waiting in line to get their ice cream:
Happy Valentine's Day Weekend, everyone!
We had a wonderful Christmas. Instead of posting a ton of pictures, I decided to go for collages instead.
First off, the girls doing some Christmas baking:
Next, opening their gifts:
And finally, some pictures of the girls putting out their reindeer food, the snack they left for Santa and with Cera, Alex and John:
We celebrated Christmas with Matt's family yesterday. We had a great time and it was so nice to have the entire family together. It's what Christmas is really about, after all. Some pictures:
Tahlia and her uncle Tim (I am not sure, but it looks like they are giving me the "loser" sign):
Jazzie and her cousin C.J.:
Jazzie and uncle Mike:
Matt with his parents and siblings:
The kids with Matt's parents:
Alex and cousin Keely:
After all the presents were unwrapped, Cera and John gave Matt, myself, Alex and the girls one more present. She told us all to open it at the same time. I thought it was strange that she would give us all a present now since we are going to see each other again on Christmas day, but didn't really think much else of it. When I opened the box, I saw a t-shirt with the word "oma". For those of you who don't know, Oma is the Dutch word for grandmother. I looked down at Jazzie and saw she had a shirt with "aunt Jazzie" on it and I realized: OMG! Cera is pregnant :-) What a great way of telling us and have the entire family be a part of it...
After the announcement, John unbuttoned his shirt to reveal the t-shirt he had been wearing underneath ;-) Very sneaky!
Congratulations, Cera and John!!!!!
Both girls had their holiday parties at school yesterday. They were so much fun!
Here are some pictures of Jazzie's party:
All the kids came in their pj's and enjoyed a breakfast with pancakes, bacon, bagels and fruit. The bacon was Jazzie's favorite:
They made reindeer food with oatmeal and glitter:
They did some crafts and made an ornament:
This project turned out like this (I LOVE it!):
And the kids got their faces painted:
And now for Tahlia's party...
There were crafts:
Cookie decorating (AND eating):
Christmas light limbo:
Tahlia and her very energetic teacher:
I love class parties!
I love this time of year; I am surrounded by things that bring me joy.
Like our tree full of ornaments that hold so many memories of our trips, milestones and special occasions:
Our China Tree which I see when I am cooking:
The girls' stockings:
Joy on the wall:
Cozy winter coats (we had the first snowfall of the season this morning):
Tahlia's reindeer with a paper chain to count down to Christmas:
Christmas cards are starting to arrive:
I get to use the special dishes made by the girls that have been put away since last Christmas:
Ginger bread latte's:
Eggnog in the fridge:
And my trusty little radio playing holiday music in the kitchen:
But this little radio is also able to kill the holiday cheer for me in an instant and that is when that HORRIBLE Christmas Shoes song comes on! It is so depressing...
HATE, HATE, HATE that song! Bah humbug!!!!
Our Halloween festivities started in the afternoon with a party for the kids on the street. We painted Halloween shirts in our garage:
We did a pumpkin waddle race:
Jazzie got some help from a neighbor:
We played the donut-on-string game (I am telling you; it is always a BIG hit!)
Jazzie once again did not want to play. She was afraid she wasn't able to do it with all her missing teeth ;-)
Here are the kids getting ready for the "candy rain":
Here it comes!
The party was a great success and the kids had tons of fun! We suggested that since they already got all that candy from the candy rain, that we could skip Trick-or-Treat, but they didn't go for it ;-)
All ready for Trick-or-Treat:
Yes, we had two Cinderella's this year. When Jazzie saw Tahlia's costume, she decided she wanted the exact same one. I wasn't sure how Tahlia would feel about her sister being the exact same thing for Halloween, but she was excited. She exclaimed: "We can be two Chinese Cinderella's!".... And so they were...
My two beautiful princesses:
Happy Valentine's Day to my 3 Valentines...
I couldn't stand to look at myself on the blog any longer. Ugh - if only I could look more like Angelina Jolie. Since I am not feeling good about myself at all, I thought I would put up a picture that makes me smile instead of feel bad...
Matt's family was here for Chinese New Year yesterday. Here are Jazzie and Tahlia with their cousin Keely (our inspiration to adopt our own girls):
And Jazzie and Keely, the two bookworms in our family. How cute are they??
In preparation for our Chinese New Year celebration with our family on Sunday, the girls and I made some mooncakes...
Tahlia and I made the dough while Jazzie was at school:
And when Jazzie came home, we rolled and filled the mooncakes...
Tahlia was quite generous with brushing on the egg yolk:
Jazzie showing deep concentration, as usual...
They may not be as pretty as these...
But at least they taste really good :-)
Just like we have done every year for Chinese New Year, Jazzie finally got to go to school in her Chinese dress and give lucky money envelopes to her friends yesterday. She was supposed to do this last week, but because of all the snow days, the Chinese New Year celebration was postponed.
Jazzie was so funny when we got to school. She usually waits until we get to the classroom before taking off her coat and backpack. However, yesterday she took off her coat as soon as we got inside, handed her backpack to me and handed the basket with envelopes to Tahlia. She then continued walking in the middle of the hallway with a big smile on her face as if to say: "Look at me; I have arrived and I am gorgeous". LOL - it was so funny.
Getting the lucky money envelopes ready to bring to school...
Ready to take them to school...
And at school with her best buddy Juliane:
I LOVE this face :-)
Some of you asked for the mooncakes recipe. The girls and I made them last year for Chinese New Year. They are so easy and fun to make! Here is the link.
Today the girls and I made sugar cookies that Tahlia will bring to school tomorrow along with her lucky money envelopes. The sugar cookies will serve as "mooncakes". Last year we made my version of real mooncakes and even though they are really good, the kids in Tahlia's preschool were not brave enough to try them :-) That's why we stuck with sugar cookies, which will be a safer bet for a bunch of 4 year olds eating/liking them.
We will make our real mooncakes next weekend when Matt's family comes over to celebrate Chinese New Year with us, but today we had a good time making "preschool mooncakes" as Tahlia called them.
... and in with the new. I felt the need for a new blog look for 2009.
From our family to yours: we wish you all very happy new year and may all your dreams come true.
As for me, I am hoping to get this up and going:
When I told Jazzie that today was the last day of 2008, her response was: "Oh man, I don't want it to be the last day of 2008. I am having fun with it; 2008 was a good year for me". LOL - I am glad that despite everything she has had to go through, Jazzie still believes that 2008 was a good year for her.
As for Tahlia when being asked what she thought about tomorrow being the start of 2009: "Does that mean we are going to die"?
Where do they get this stuff???
We will be celebrating New Year's Eve with some local Dutch families. Since we all have small children, we will ring in the New Year at 6 PM, which is midnight in Holland. We will have some good Dutch food and refresh our Dutch language skills ;-)
Happy New Year everyone.
I forgot to post some pictures from Tahlia's Christmas party at school. We are enjoying our Christmas break so far. We got together with Matt's family on Sunday and celebrated Christmas with each other. We had such a good time and it just proves that being together with family means so much more than any gift.
It is so nice to not have to rush around in the morning to try and get ready for school. The girls are enjoying not being rushed as well and we are all just chilling. Matt let me sleep in this morning and I didn't get up until almost 9. It was heaven! My shopping is done, the gifts are wrapped, there is enough food in the house for the rest of the week and I am a happy camper :-)
Now for those pictures:
A couple of more pictures that did not make the card this year, for obvious reasons :-)
I've always loved decorating the Christmas tree. I try to buy an ornament every time we go on a trip or for each important event in our lives. I write the event and the date on the bottom of each ornament, so it's nice to be able to take the ornaments out of the box each year and take a walk down memory lane.
I buy the girls an ornament or two each year and they keep them in a special box with their name on it. The idea is that when they leave the nest, they will have a nice assortment of ornaments. My tree will be empty, but theirs will be full of ornaments :-) After the girls were done hanging their own ornaments, they of course wanted to help me put up the rest. That was fine, but the only thing was that I did not get to stop with each ornament and remember special times. When I take the tree down after Christmas, I am going to put my most special ornaments in a separate box so that I can take them out and have those memories. It truly is one of my favorite things about Christmas.
Here are some of my favorite ornaments:
Bought in Hawaii during our honeymoon:
Shortly after Laura died, Matt and I took a trip out West. One of our stops was in Sedona where we visited the Chapel of the Holy Cross. It was beautiful. I lit a candle for Laura there and it was so emotional, but also very peaceful:
Before we had the girls, our pup Lily was our baby. And I treated her like one :-) I even took her to see Santa!
Bought during our latest trip to the Netherlands:
When Matt and I came back from China with Jazzie, we had a layover in L.A. We struck up a conversation with a very nice woman. She was kind of eclectic because of the way she was dressed and the fact that she had all these butterfly clips in her hair. She just kept rubbing Jazzie's little hands and telling us how lucky we were. When it was time for us to get on our flight, she took a hair pin out of her hair and gave it as a gift to Jazzie:
This one was bought during our little get-away to the Dominican Republic last year. It was the first time in many years that Matt and I got to go away together without the kids and just focus on each other. It was a much needed break and a reminder that we need to do this more often.
In 2004 I became an American citizen!
Ornaments made by the girls are some of my very favorites :-)
A pretty little ballerina; I believe the entire family has one of these ornaments, because it looks so much like Laura:
And last but not least, a daily occurrence:
Do I need to say more??
... and I finally got our Christmas card pictures. The girls were not very cooperative this year, so it was a little difficult, but in the end I am happy with the result. I felt like I was in somewhat of a rush to get the pictures done, since I need to mail some of them overseas and I want them to get there on time.
Gotta love digital and a super fast camera. I just kept clicking thinking that there were sure to be a couple of good pictures there! I will post them a little bit closer to Christmas, but here is just one of the pictures that I did NOT use:
Every year I put up a small Christmas tree in our kitchen and I let the girls decorate it with ornaments that we bought in China. Some are from Hunan and some are from Guangdong. I started this tradition the first year that Jazzie was home. Each year we hang the ornaments in honor of the girls' birth parents.
I am not sure how much it means to them yet, but it means a lot to me...
Halloween was fun, with perfect weather! I have more pictures of Tahlia in her costume, because she got to go to school in her costume. Jazzie changed right before Trick-or-Treat and didn't have time to pose for pictures ;-) I convinced Tahlia to go Trick-or-Treating with me and even though she was nervous at first, she really got into it later and exclaimed many times: "I like Trick-or-Treating now mom!" She was so cute when she got to each house, because she examined each bowl of candy very carefully before choosing a piece ;-) Some pictures:
And here is a picture of Matt's pumpkin all lit up, as requested by Stacy. Matt carved this from a pattern by the way; not free hand. Still, I think it turned out awesome.
And now I am off to get ready for our neighbor's annual (adult only) Halloween bash!
