Thanksgiving, Christmas, Chinese New Year, Birthday, Oh my!

My gummie bear cake
My second round of presents

One more candle!

I do not like Chuck E. Cheese!

Happy Again!

The roller coster ride

Princess Lily An

Alissa and Lily being silly

My Birthday Party

Me and my snow man!

My first snow

Singing Away In A Manger

My Christmas Pagent

My first Christmas presents

Christmas Morning

I don't know if it's finding the time or remembering to update this blog, but whatever the case may be I find myself having to do several months at a time.

November brought Thanksgiving. We had a wonderful Thanksgiving and it was Lily An's first. It's one of my favorite holidays. I love putting up fall decorations, the smells of pumpkin candles, and the season changing bringing us cooler weather. Lily An sure did enjoy her first Thanksgiving dinner.

December of course brought Christmas. It was really fun being able to hang a stocking for Lily An this year and teaching her what Christmas is all about. My favorite was teaching her about Mary and Joseph and the baby Jesus. She refered to Joseph as "Joefus". We also had "Roofoff" the Red Nosed Reindeer as well. She also performed in her class play at preschool by singing "Away in the Manger". We must have listened to Martina McBride's version 100 times in preparation for her performance. She was of course cute as a button and it just warmed my heart to watch her.

Not much happend in January other then our first real snow fall. We did go sledding around out court and made a really cute snowman.

February is Chinese New Year and Lily An's 4th Birthday. Chinese New Year was the 7th, so she wore her traditional Chinses silk dresses to school each day. We did make goody bags for her class which we put Chinese candy and cookies in little Chinese bags for her to give out to her friends and teachers. Alissa, Ashleigh, Lily An and I went to dinner at our favorite Chinese Resturant and the girls wore their Chinese silk red dresses. There was another family there with their little China doll as well. Lily An was also excited that her new show started on Nick Jr. called "Ni Hao Kai Lan" which is about a little girl in China. I have to admit that it's a darling show.

Saturday February 9th was Lily An's 4th birthday and her first in the United States. We celebrated by going to Chuck E. Cheese and her whole class from preschool attended as well as Alissa, Ashleigh, Lindsay and Uncle Mitch. She really had fun until Mr. Chuck E. himself made an appearance and she screamed. She did not like the big rat! On Sunday we had her family birthday party and she chose Mimi's Cafe for lunch. We then went home to open presents and have cake and ice cream. She seemed to have a great weekend and enjoyed all her festivities.

We are celebrating Valentines Day at preschool and will be working on doing her Valentines to give to her friends.

Lily An continues to excel in all areas. She is very smart and catches on to new tasks very easily. She is very confident and happy. Most days she is a perfect angel!!!!

She is a joy to have in our family and I am grateful for the Lord's call to adopt. She is my little blessing!

Finally Catching Up

Pumpkin Patch with Alissa
Lily being cute at the Pumpkin Patch

In my white dress for my Blessing
My Blessing Day
At the Petting Zoo
My friend the Camel!
I didn't like his kiss!
My first day of school
My first day of school
Chuck E. Cheese
Chuck E. Cheese
Chuck E. Cheese
My first pony ride at the Petting Zoo
My silly side!



Yes I know it's been along time since I updated Lily An's blog but I think I'm finally getting the hang of it and finding the time is another story.
Time just keeps flying by. It's been six months since we arrived home from China and we just had our six month post-placement with the social worker in September and she is amazed how well Lily An is doing and the adjustments she has made. We really didn't have any problems adjusting and she is doing great! Lily An is only speaking English and is a little chatter box. I guess she gets that from Alissa.
This summer we attend a picnic in Ohio with many families from my adoption agency, All Gods Children International. We had a wonderful time and it was great to see all the little China dolls, both boys and girls, with their forever families.
Lily An wanted to have her ears pierced and was a real trooper. Not one tear!
She had fun playing in the pool and hanging out with her big sisters and Alissa. We have been to Chuck E. Cheese, The Leesburg Petting Zoo, where Lily An was licked by a camel, and most recently the Pumpkin Patch. She is so much fun and has lots of energy!
Lily An loves to do puzzles, play with her dolls, color and read books. She is one intelligent young lady! She is a love bug, cuddle bug, silly, naughty, happy, whiney hiney, cute as a button three year old.
Lily An started preschool this fall four days a week and really enjoys it. She also goes to the sitter now after school until I get home from work. She has made this adjustments very well and seems happy in her new routine.
She was blessed at church on Sunday September 3oth and is a true blessing to our family.
We are going to New York in a couple of weeks to finally visit my sister and her family so they can meet Lily An.
So you can see we are always on the go and always having fun.
I am grateful for the blessing of Lily An and I know she was meant to be my daughter.
Terry

The long awaited update

Sean has passed the torch onto me now. He is a much better writer but I will make an attempt.
Lily An is doing very well. She is adjusting better then we could have ever imagined. She has bonded very well to her Mama and to and to her Jie Jie's, Ashleigh and Lindsay. She is also warming up to Blair and doing better with him, and she was better with Sean today, but must still be holding a grudge for the timeout he put her in while we were in China. Alissa (my granddaughter) has become her new best friend. Alissa is 9 month older so there is a lot of competition. Lily An wakes up every morning screaming "Lissa" and ready to play. Alissa is the boss and Lily An is the tattle tail. At least they both have their own roles!
Lily An is a very good sleeper and eats really well when you can find what it is that she likes. Her favorites are bananas, watermelon, strawberries, fried rice and french fries. She never turns down a treat though. The girl has to have her chocolate!
Lily An's English is coming along very well. She learned the word "no" way too fast. Ashleigh's favorite is "Chao Chao so funny!!! She responds to Lily An but still refers to herself as Chao Chao, which is what she was called in the orphanage.
She is a funny, loving, little girl and fits into our family as if she has always been here.
The pictures included in todays post were taken by Ashleigh. She did a great job!
Terry

It's Official!

We got everything done at the American Consulate today, so Lily is officially a Stansell (whether she should be happy about it or not is still up for debate). Once she goes through immigration and customs at Dulles she'll be an official US Citizen.

Ok, here's the day's recap:

Got up, had breakfast. I went shopping while Mom and Lily tried to go to the zoo. Unfortunately it was raining (a very little bit, and they're wimps), so they had to bail. Instead they went and goofed off in the playroom for a while. Then we did some more shopping (do you see a theme here...) and went to lunch. After lunch we went to the consulate. Lots of the moms cried, but Mom kept it together. What a good girl she is.

After the consulate we had another amazing dinner. Then (wait for it...) more shopping. Now it's packing time, then off to bed. We leave the hotel tomorrow morning at 10, and our flight from Guangzhou to Beijing leaves at 12:55. We leave Beijing around 6:00, and arrive back at Dulles around 7:45PM Wednesday night (less than two hours after we leave, but it's almost a 14 hour flight! Amazing! Our plane goes almost the speed of time!). Mom and I are both anxious to get home, but aren't looking forward to the 17 hours of flights tomorrow. If I learned one thing on this trip is that China is far.

Here's your daily dose of pictures (including my favorite thus far...I'm becoming quite the Ansel Adams)

Monday Update - Cruise on the Pearl River

Monday was a day in three parts: the morning was uneventful, spent mostly in our room waiting for Visas and paperwork to go through, the afternoon saw me get a haircut and mom get in some more shopping, and in the evening we took a dinner cruise on the Pearl River.

Since we spent the morning hanging around the room there's not much to report from there. Some excitement in the afternoon though, when we went to a store we'd already been to a couple of times, and the three young Chinese ladies that worked there basically adopted Lily as their little sister. They talked to her (calling here "mei mei", or little sister, while she called them "jie jie", or big sister), gave her cookies, and even gave her and mom matching bracelets. That kid is quite a charmer.

Our cruise on the Pearl River was really the highlight of the day. Lily has enjoyed watching boats go by on the river during our breakfast buffet. Seeing them up close, from another boat, was SO MUCH BETTER! We had a blast just watching her. The dinner portion of the cruise was not so good. I'll just say that stewed chicken feet was one of the items on the buffet and we'll leave it at that...

Photos from the cruise

And a video of Lily's reaction to a boat going by.



Tomorrow Mom and Lily are off to the zoo in the morning, then we're going to the American Consulate for the Oath ceremony in the afternoon.

Sean

Sunday Night - More Video

Long day, very tired. We had breakfast at the hotel's buffet (and there's video of it below), then Mom and Lily went to church. After church we went out shopping, picking up some good stuff, then off the to the pearl market with our whole adoption agency gang. That boiled down to 2+ hours of Mom buying things, me trying to stay out of the way, and Lily not liking me. So Mom had a blast. Me, not so much :)

After we got back we had dinner with a couple of families at a place on the other side of the island. Excellent food, again. We haven't had a bad meal anywhere. Either all the food in the country is good or we've been extremely lucky. After dinner we went to Starbucks for dessert. Then we picked up our laundry and finally made our way back to the hotel. And boy are we tired. Well, Mom and I are. Here's a recording of Lily singing in her crib instead of going to sleep.

Tomorrow morning we have to wait in the room for Lily's visa to come through. Then I'm sure more shopping. Finally we're taking a dinner cruise on the Pearl River. Another busy day.

Here's the video of Lily expressing her artistic side at breakfast:

Saturday update - With VIDEO!

We got up bright and early this morning to get Lily to her physical. We met up with the six other families from All God's Children and walked over to the clinic. Lily got a clean bill of health, and weighed in at a very healthy 28 pounds. She was also very well-behaved during the exam, not even coming close to crying. That made her very different from the other kids. Boy was it loud in there.

After the exam we went to Starbucks so everyone could get a fix of western culture (and air conditioning). Then we did a little shopping. Lily got a couple of dresses and a couple of pairs of squeaky shoes (don't worry, I removed the squeakers...). As usual I took plenty of pictures.

After all that we went to lunch at an American-friendly restaurant. Mom had a hankering for a cheeseburger and fries. Here's some video, taken with my digital camera, so the quality's not great, but we forgot the cable to connect the camcorder to the computer, so y'all will just have to deal with it :) Let me know if it doesn't work. Apparently you can upload videos to Google from China, but you can't view them, so I have no idea if it actually works :)

Safe & Sound in Guangzhou

We landed safe & sound in Guangzhou this afternoon. All in all Lily handled the flight pretty well. She did decide she needed to go potty right before takeoff, and that led to a bit of a tantrum, but after that she just slept.

In general flying in China is much more pleasant than in the US. Security isn't as tight, so you don't have to take your shoes off. The flight attendants are all very polite and friendly. They serve you drinks (twice on our short flight) AND a snack box (which had a roll, a small salad, pickles, and a muffin). Plus our checked baggage was on the baggage return moments after we got there. I think the folks back home could learn a thing or two over here.

We checked in to the White Swan hotel this evening and had an EXCELLENT meal at one of the restaurants here. I finally got a taste of the very spicy food I had been waiting for (Sliced beef in fiery oil). Mmmmmmm. Also took a quick trip to the local convenience store around the corner from the hotel. The place was great! I hope we get them back home at some point. The name was just a bunch of numbers. What was it? Oh yeah, 7-11 :)

Tomorrow morning we have Lily's physical bright and early, then a free day. Should be a good chance for Mom to do the shopping she's been itching for.

Ok, here are a few goodies to keep y'all occupied for a while. First, some more random pictures. Next, two recordings of Lily singing herself to sleep in her crib.

First recording
Second recording

She's well on her way to being the American Idol in 2022!

We'll be back tomorrow with lots of pictures of Guangzhou I'm sure (or at least the shopping districts...)

Oh, and one more thing. Squeaky shoes are the worst invention ever. If you know what I'm talking about I hope you agree. If you don't have any idea what I mean, consider yourself lucky.

That's all for tonight,

Sean

Thursday Afternoon: Fuzi Maio

Quick update: I'm a little under the weather, so this is going to be quick. We went to the Fuzi Maio this afternoon. It's a temple to Confucious that's been the seat of Confucious study for something like a thousand years. Pretty crazy. Here are all of the pictures.

Also had a snack at a Haagen Dazs. You could say they're a little different here. It's an actual sit-down restaurant. With waitresses and menus and everything. The ice cream was still good though. It was a nice little taste of home.

We leave for Guangzhou tomorrow, so probably no more updates until we get there and get settled.

Sean

Wednesday Afternoon Update - The Zhonghua Gate

Lots of pics of the Zhonghua Gate. It was very interesting to see something made in the 1300's that's still standing. Let me tell you it was fun getting Lily's stroller up the giant ramps to the top. They go on forever, and the stones aren't exactly even. Big fun!

After the gate we walked to a little restaurant for lunch. The food was very good, but Lily was very tired and not in the mood to be there, so we boxed most of it up and took it back to the hotel. So far all the food here has been insanely cheap. A giant crock of soup, large fried rice, huge bowl of noodles, and 6 big dumplings for 67 yuan, or about $7. I love this place!

Last night we ate at the Sichuan restaurant at the hotel. It was extremely hot in there, the tables and chairs were uncomfortable, and Lily had a tantrum. But the food...Oh was the food good. Really good. Fantastic. Amazing. Ridiculous even. The total bill? $8.

Here are some more assorted pictures of Lily hanging out in the hotel room. For ambiance sake, imagine that little cell phone saying "Hi, I'm Ariel, you're the first human friend I've ever had, RIIIIIIIIIIIIIING!" Lots o' fun. It may find it's way out the window at some point...Unfortunately it's her favorite toy right now. Oy.

That's all for now. Time for naps.

Sean