Forever Family Day Anniversary

On this day one year ago, we became a family of three and Lixia gained the love of a family, forever.  It was a joyous occasion as we were reunited after a 7 1/2 month wait.  We were able to pick up right where we left off.  Our trip to China seems like so long ago even though this feels like the fastest year of our lives.

Lixia is still as amazing as ever.  She is always brave, loving, affectionate, kind, polite, and happy.   This girl never has a bad or off day.  She always wants to know what we are doing next Saturday (the weekend before) and plans her meals 2-3 days in advance.  Noodles or rice are still her favorite but she will eat anything.  I'm pretty sure she ate an entire bag of shrimp yesterday (a girl after my own heart).  She has a strong love for vanilla ice cream (every night if she could), and also enjoys Smore's with Nutella.  Good thing Nutella isn't chocolate because she does not like chocolate:).  She loves spending time with people and would prefer to go to town rather than stay at home.  She has enjoyed getting back into her school routine.  She is in first grade this year and happy to have some of her friends from last year in her class.  She wants to have picture-perfect handwriting.  Her favorite subject is math.  She excels at reading and has received 100% and 90% on her first spelling tests.  She loves gymnastics, playing soccer for fun, anything cheer/dance/tap, and everything E-I-U.  Lixia would wear a dress everyday if she could.  She has grown some (about 3 pounds in weight and 1 inch in height in the past year) and continues to get stronger.

She is the light of our lives!  We are so grateful that God nudged us to say yes.  It's difficult to articulate how much she has enriched and fulfilled our lives.  Happy 1st Year Forever Family Day baby girl!

One year ago (9-5-16)

8 Months

I am a little behind in posting an update.  It was nearly 8 months ago that we were in China having our forever family day with Lixia.  Here is a brief update about what we've been up to and how things are going:

October
Lixia loves to drive by and point to the EIU castle.  She begged and pleaded to go there and finally got her chance during EIU's Homecoming.  She got to meet Billy the Panther and go to her first parade.  We visited Tent City and she cheered on the Panthers at her first football game.

We had a special afternoon with Papa Swing and Grandma Barb at Aikman's Wildlife Adventure in Arcola.  The highlight was the Wagon Tour where we got up close and personal with the animals and even got to feed them.  The zoo is going to seem boring after this special trip.

This was her first Halloween and she enjoyed carving her first pumpkin.  Mommy also visited her school for her classroom Halloween party.

November

By this time, we have gotten our rhythm and routine down.  Lixia was loving going to school and making new friends.  We enjoyed a visit from special friends and Lixia loved all the extra attention.  It's always so great to catch up with Suzann, Alissa, and Emma and Emma was so kind to take some family pics for us.

We visited Santa Claus at the Festival of Trees and enjoyed face painting with Kinsley and Charlie.  We also had a great Thanksgiving with family and friends.

December

Lixia started the month with the Trojet Dance Clinic.  She loves to cheer and dance so it was no surprise that she loved it.  Even now months later, she randomly starts doing dance moves from the routine she learned.

Lixia had been asking to go on a train ride so we obliged by having lunch with Santa on the Polar Express in Monticello.  She asked Santa for a dress because what girl doesn't want a dress?!  It was a snowy afternoon and really set the mood for the trip.  She was just excited because she got to eat chips in her sack lunch.

Lixia was the star of the Broadway Christian Church Christmas Program.  She sang her heart out and was very enthusiastic about her performance.  She kept up with the hand motions and was also one of the loudest.  Unfortunately, she didn't know most of the words even after weeks of practicing.  She could sing Jesus very clearly, but that was about it.  Everyone still seemed to enjoy watching it.  

Santa Claus found our house for Christmas.  She was very excited about him going up and down our chimney.  He left Lixia a new bicycle.  She was awfully concerned because her bike was too big and she needed a little bike like Kinsley's.  A great ending to our 2016 and fun to see how much she has changed in one year.  

January

We started the year by taking Lixia to her first movie at the theatre.  She did really well.

Due to the unseasonably warm temperatures, we were able to visit the St. Louis Zoo in January.  She loved visiting all the animals and can't wait to plan another visit.

Lixia celebrated the 100th day of school and enjoyed dressing up as a "grandma" with all her classmates.

This was our first year celebrating the Chinese New Year.  The holiday fell on Saturday, January 28th.  This was the first day of the Chinese lunar calendar.  CNY 2017 was the year of the Rooster.  We celebrated by making decorations and re-decorating our Christmas Tree, enjoying traditional Chinese food from the Asian market, and reading a few books about the holiday.  We also went to a special event at the Urbana Free Library.

We ended the month with Lixia's 10th birthday party.  We enjoyed a small party with close family at home.  She enjoyed the special cake [Peppa Pig] that Grandma Barb made for her, unwrapping gifts, and having everyone sing to her.  This girl isn't shy about being the center of attention.

February

Lixia and Baba enjoyed their first daddy-daughter dance at Broadway Christian Church.  They were a beautiful couple and had a great evening.  Lixia's favorite part was going out to eat for "china food" beforehand.

Lixia loves all things dancing, cheerleading, and gymnastics.  So when we have events that she can participate in, we try to take full advantage.  She is so limber and flexible, we have no doubt that with practice, she will probably excel.  This month she did an EIU cheer clinic and did a beginner gymnastics class through the Recreation Department.

April

As the weather has warmed up, we have spent more and more time outside.  She loves to play bubbles and use sidewalk chalk.  She is working on riding her bicycle but after a couple of falls, she is understandably apprehensive.  She has gotten so much stronger!  We did a fun science experiment where we inflated a balloon by the reaction of vinegar and baking soda.  She has also learned how to play baseball with a wiffle ball and bat.  Her hand-eye coordination has improved so much she learned immediately and gets tons of hits.

We had special visitors when Christian and Hailey came over to play.  She was excited about eating pizza, doing puzzles, playing Barbies, and playing Go Fish.  Chris and I were so amazed at how far she has come in interacting with other kids, playing, and communicating.  It was an eye-opener for us.  Especially since it had been several months since she had seen them.

We celebrated our first Easter.  She talked about wearing her special dress to church for weeks.  She enjoyed coloring Easter eggs and seeing which colors could be combined to make new colors.  The Easter Bunny found our house and left her a basket with some special treats.  Since she does not like sweets at all, the eggs that she found contained coins and she was very excited about taking them to the bank.  We compromised and she added them to her bank at home.

Mommy got to attend her first school musical.  She was so proud and did some a great job at singing along and doing the hand motions.

She also got to attend a birthday party for one of her classmates.  It was held at the Flip Zone.  She was very uneasy around the trampoline, but by the end, she loved it.  She practiced walking on the balance beam and can't wait to go back.  She has made some great friends in her class and it was fun to watch them play together.

Overall, it is amazing to see how far Lixia has come.  She has lost three baby teeth and has new permanent teeth coming in.  She has gained some weight and is now up to 38 pounds.  She has grown in height, advanced a shoe size, and started to gain muscle strength and fill out.  Her hair is growing and thickening up.  She begs to have long hair.  She loves to put together puzzles, build with legos, and play Barbies.  Food is still her love language.  She out eats us most days.  She is always open to trying new foods and is such a good eater.  She loves to snuggle with Mommy and Baba.  She is absolutely in love with her "sister" Bessie.  Bessie is our dog and if you remember when she visited last winter, she was absolutely terrified of the dog and screamed bloody murder.  If you have had a recent conversation with her, she probably asked you if you had a dog, what its name is, if it is big or little, and whether it is inside or outside.  If you asked her dog's name, you likely got the response "B-E-S-S-I-E."  She really likes to spell the words that she knows.  She is doing great in school and above average in her recognition/reading of sight words.  It makes my heart-swell to hear her read the leveled readers that she brings home.  This girl loves math.  Her vocabulary improves everyday and her spoken English continues to get stronger.  Her handwriting is beautiful and she concentrates so hard to make every letter or number "pretty."  Astounding progress for a girl who had never been to school, had never used a pencil, put together a puzzle, and whose coloring consisted of scribbling.  She loves to sing along to the radio.  One of her favorites is Hillary Scott's "Thy Will Be Done."  She loves to belt out songs in the car and exclaims, "I know this song."  Still working on the concept that songs are made up of words:)  This girls loves to sleep.  Every Friday night she says "sleep long time" aka let me sleep in.

I'm not sure how we got so lucky for God to choose us to be her parents, but our lives are blessed by her presence every minute of every day.   She fills our lives with joy with her smile, orneriness, and sassy personality.

One Month Home

It seems crazy to think that our sweet daughter has been in her forever home for just over a month.  We are constantly amazed at how well she is doing under the circumstances and the trauma she experienced in being removed from the only home (the orphanage) she has ever known and placed in a strange place, with unusual food and weird smells.  She has adjusted extremely well and is picking up new English words and phrases on a daily basis.  She understands so much English, much more than she can speak at this point, and her communication by handmotions is getting less and less.  Some of her words sound similar and it can be a challenge to understand her pronunciation.

She knows her ABCs, her colors, and numbers to 10.  When she arrived home, it was obvious that she had never done a puzzle before.  She now wants to do puzzles on a daily basis and is getting faster at matching the pieces together.  Most of them are 25 pieces but there is one that is 63.  She is gaining strength in her legs and is getting much better at maneuvering the stairs.  When she arrived home, she had difficultly with pedaling a tricycle.  She has improved so much and now drives my pedal tractor on a daily basis.  She loves to pedal as fast as she can.  If you ask her her name, she can recite first, middle, and last names.  She loves our dog, Bessie.  She prefers when she is laying beside her or giving her kisses.  She talks to her constantly about going outside to potty.

She spent a few days at our church preschool to ease her into transition to all day school and has been attending Kindergarten for a few weeks.  She loves going to school and and knows her teacher's name is Mrs. V.  She asks for "more school" all the time.  Her writing continues to improve, and I'm sure with extra services, like ELL (English Language Learners) and Title I, we will continue to see great progress.

We have kept pretty busy over the last month spending time with close friends and family.  We have done fun things like visiting Curtis Orchard and the Great Pumpkin Patch.  We have went "swimming" and enjoyed playdates.  We celebrated Chris' birthday and she had fun making the cake, singing Happy Birthday, and helping to blow out the candles.  She regularly tells us "no airplane, Lixia home."  It is obvious she is looking for reassurance that we are not shipping her back to China.

We met our friend, Joy, for dinner recently so that she could hear and communicate in Mandarin.  You could see the little wheels turning in her head as she concentrated and focused.  It was apparent that she could interpret and understand her native language and she answered many questions by shaking her head yes or no.  For some questions that Joy asked her in Mandarin, she would turn to me and respond in English.

If you have had the privilege to spend any time with Lixia, you know she is always happy and smiling.  She has brought so much joy to our lives in such a short-time and it is hard to imagine life before her presence graced our lives.  I would also describe her as brave, resilient, cheerful, polite, sassy, ornery, loving, and smart.  We fall more in love with her everyday.

We may not update the blog as frequently but will try to post when we hit special milestones.  Thanks for continuing to follow our journey.  Enjoy some pics from the last month.