Christmas!

Running to her kitchen on Christmas morning.
Making a funny face at her new utensils.

Trying on her new clickety-clacks.
This picture of Blake and Tahra says it all.
The best picture we could get of Uncle Kevin and all 5 nieces and nephews.

Riding one of the 3 tractors she got for Christmas. This one was from Uncle Kev.

Oh how long I've waited to set a place for Lily at Christmas! In addition to all that pasta, she also ate octopus and shrimp. I told you she's related to us.
Uncle Kev with his lovingly prepared mussels and clams.

Tooty Lou shouting an order to someone.
Christmas will wear a kid out. And her dad.

We were so busy enjoying Christmas with Lily that we didn't take too many pictures, but here's what we got. It was all completely wonderful, and though it was extra fun with Lily, it seemed completely normal. It didn't at all seem like our first Christmas with her-- just like every day, it seems like she's always been here.

We broke with tradition and had Christmas Eve at our house, and the kids got to open one present. They opened Uncle Kevin's gifts since he got Santa-ish gifts, including a tractor for Lily. She can either push it or ride on it, and as soon as she opened it she hopped right on it and got to work. Apparently there's tractoring to be done even on Christmas Eve.

The next morning was great. We made coffee and got some clothes on before doing gifts because we could. We realized that this was the last Christmas when Lily wouldn't know what was waiting for her downstairs. When we were finally ready, I set her down in the hallway and said, "Look!" and she went running for where the gifts were, but she stopped at the coffee table and started playing with some of her old toys. Finally she saw her new kitchen and got that Christmas morning grin on her face. In true Lily fashion she immediately set to work cooking up a storm, and it was awhile before we could move to the next gift. She was so tickled at the boil and sizzle noises that the stove made, and Grammie had fun showing her all the other features (she should know them since she's been playing with the kitchen for 2 months now).

I forget what happened the rest of the weekend. I know there was a lot of food, a lot of smiles, and lots of kisses for Lily (and I'm happy to say not too ridiculously many presents). And I know that Lily didn't seem to pay attention when we tried telling her the real reason we celebrate Christmas, but I know it makes a difference for her to hear Truth. For instance, she's been hearing me pray for her when she hurts herself for 10 months now, and now she initiates it-- when she's hurt she grabs my hands, bows, and says "Lord?". She is such a sponge and such a parrot, and I pray that she'll only copy my good habits!

Lily is 2!

some zoo pics from the other day

my girls

After many birthday celebrations, Lily is finally 2! We celebrated the actual day by taking her out to breakfast- a treat indeed, all 15 minutes of it. Miss Busy Bee isn't exactly restaurant material. And in true keeping with classic fickle 2-year-old behavior, she wouldn't eat a single bite of pancake and instead ate my entire arugula and goat cheese omelette. ???? Last time she ate everyone's pancakes. She is like the weather in Texas-- if you don't like it, stick around-- it won't last. 

Speaking of pancakes, we found out at her 2 year check up that her weight has leveled off but she keeps getting taller. She is in the 25th percentile for height but still on an upward trajectory, and in the 40th percentile for weight but it has plateaued for the last few months. I wish I could say the same thing for myself. She's completely on track developmentally, and is now officially done with all of her shots. Yay!! She went out with a bang there-- she was super mad about the shots this time after being a superstar last time (again with the fickle). The doctor wants us to do a renal ultrasound to make sure she doesn't have kidney stones from tainted formula, so you can pray about that. The brand the orphanage told us she was on (mildly reliable info) supposedly isn't on the list of tainted brands (also only mildly reliable info) so I'm somewhat hopeful that she's fine. 

She sang to me today in the car for the first time and it was as heartwarmingly sweet as you are imagining. She was drinking out of her new sippy cup from Nanni Cindy and Poppy, and told me it had stars on it, then proceeded to sing, "up abubba" as in, "up above the world so high," and when I tried to sing along she yelled at me. The only recognizable part besides "upabubba" was "like a dima" or something like that. She's having quite a musical week because she also started rocking out when she heard Christmas music playing at the bagel shop yesterday, and she had decidedly different moves than her usual ones, which I thought was appropriate considering a classical version of Jingle Bells was playing. Blake started copying her moves, then she'd copy him-- like a little dance off. It was one of the moments I wished I had a video camera, although that would have just ensured they stopped dancing. Apparently all of the other patrons were blind because no one seemed to be enjoying the show. What is wrong with people? Quietly dancing two-year-olds is universally cute, is it not?

Lily and I were at the airport last night to greet our city's newest Chinese adoptee, Karleigh Mei, who is just the cutest thing. She's almost the exact same age as several of our other friends (just turned 3) so she has a ready-made posse. We brought her some of the balloons from Lily's party which are still going strong (they sure didn't make helium balloons like that when I was a kid) and after Lily gave them to her, she immediately started yelling, "mine! mine!" as if Karleigh Mei had stolen her puppy. Such an indian giver! (are we allowed to say that anymore, or do we have to say criss-cross applesauce giver?). Anyway, I decided to take it as sure proof that they got her birthday right-- she is indeed 2. As we walked hand-in-hand back to the car, I got all veklempt (thanks Lisa) thinking how much Lily has changed since we got off that plane 9 months ago. She couldn't yet walk, was light as a feather and would eat anything I gave her. Needless to say it brought plenty of tears to my eyes to think about how far she's come, and to know that there is one less orphan in the world now that Karleigh Mei is home. 

Lily and Santa, Part II

On our walk to the park to see him, Lily talked all about sitting on Santa's lap (which she pronounces with a very hard "p" at the end), but when it came time to pull the trigger, she just couldn't do it. You can see the look of concern on her face in this picture, and that's with me holding her. 

After those fun moments we followed the neighbor boys over to the playground to have a little playtime with Dad at the park, which we usually don't get to do. Lily loved how high Kyle pushed her on the swing. If she's not close to falling out, she's not having fun. Same with the slide. If it's not treacherous enough to harm a child, she's not all that interested. She pushed the stroller all the way home, which is pretty impressive to watch. Most of the time she can't see where she's going but she still stays the course pretty well. She may take after me with driving after all. Between the driving I saw in China and the driving I see every time her dad is behind the wheel, I wasn't very hopeful.

Her language skills have really been exploding the the last couple of weeks. She tries to say everything, and more of her words are clear. She regularly strings together 2 and 3 words, and she has very cute ways of saying lots of words like "allalily" for alligator and "bababeeboo" for apple juice. She still says "laloo" for both water and I love you, and I think I'm going to be sad when she says them right. Many of her words are also evolving. She used to call Blake, "B", then "Bay" and this week it's been "Blay" or "Blate." Sometimes Marlow is "Larlow" but often it's still "Lolo." She's even called Tahra "Teawa" instead of "Rara" a few times. That one comes out really cute. Grandy and Grammie are getting a lot clearer too, but a horse is still a "deedee" (?). Gus is still "Dus" and we're sad that she only rarely calls Hazel "Didlelee" anymore. She's shortened it to "Lee" and it usually has an exclamation point at the end. Her favorite fruit is the "doanj" or orange, and after she asks for one, she says, "Dandy?" since he peeled one for her a few months ago. Her mind is a steel trap. She started including "Lala" when she did roll call, and I kept wondering if she meant me since that's what her cousins call me. Finally I realized it didn't have to be a mystery, so I asked her where Lala was and she pointed to me. Dangit... always a bridesmaid. 

She's been pretty good with the Christmas decorations and although she rearranges the ornaments on the tree daily, she hasn't broken any of them. Every time we pass the snowman on the stairs she tells him to stay. Not sure what that's about, but it could mean she's not sure if he'll come to life when she's sleeping? Or maybe that's just me having flashbacks about the scary clown painting my Auntie Fray had when we were kids. 

Lily waves to the snowmen decorations in our neighborhood and calls them "maymen", which is the same word she uses at the end of a prayer. Every time she talks on the phone to someone she loves she says in a really sad voice, "dode you" and reaches out with her hands (the international sign for "hold you"). Another cute thing she says is "help you" which comes out as "heppa-yeww" and it means she'd like to be doing what you're doing. 

One of the funny things she started doing a couple weeks ago was sighing and saying her version of "tired!" (which sounds more like "tide".) Unsurprisingly she does it at appropriate times, like after she's carried something upstairs. 

She's still playing pretend with her dolls and animals, and yesterday she was making her horses kiss while she made smoochy noises. They're married so it's ok.  She also tries to put diapers on her stuffed animals and still feeds them too.

If this litany of developmental updates is boring to you, that's ok-- considering that you're reading Lily's baby book. This is the only one she really has, so I have to remind myself to do updates like this so I don't forget all the things she did and when. Even though it's only been 9 months, I still can't really remember how old she was when she started to walk or when she quit calling Grammie and Grandy both "Dada." Good thing I have it in here! Hopefully Blogger isn't one of the companies looking for a government bailout because I'd be up a creek if this site disappeared. (Speaking of that, I feel another political post coming on... consider yourself warned).

Please pray for my health-- I thought I had allergies, then a cold, but now I think it might be the flu considering that I've been sick for 5 days. I think I felt better 5 days after my surgeries than I feel today. Blech. Please also pray that the rest of the family doesn't get it, because I'll be in no mood to caretake once I'm better. I mean, pray for them not to get it because I wouldn't want them to be this sick :)

Lastly, please also pray for Jenn and her husband Karl who are in China right now with her new daughter, Karleigh Mei. I linked to their blog on my list if you want to see how adorable San Antonio's newest China girl is. They are doing great but most families are ready to come home by this time in the trip. I know we were!

Lily and Santa(s)

******Scroll down for birthday party post*************

Lily and I went with all the cousins and Grammy Cindy from California (my SIL's mom) to some Christmas thing at Schlitterbahn. They had light shows and fake snow and bobsled rides but Lily's favorite thing was the display of electric trains. She LOVED them, and was convinced that if she stood there long enough the nice man would let her touch them. No dice. 

I was convinced she would be freaked out by Santa since she hasn't been all that pleased by other costumed characters, but as we were waiting in line I peeked through the trees and said, "Santa looks like Grandy." Apparently that did the trick because she was not at all fazed by sitting next to him. 

Birthday Party Pictures!

Some pictures of the decor and desserts. 

I'm hoping the blonde girls didn't feel too different around all the Chinese beauties.
Lily was so happy to have her Grammie and Grandy at her party.
I liked this one of Lil and Libs looking in on somebody's crate. The chickens perhaps?
And this one too of Lily and Lindy reaching in at the pig.

This one's blurry, but I love the expression on her face. She was so tickled that they all knew the same song Kyle and I had been singing to her all week.

Picking off the sprinkles one by one. What is it with sprinkles? They don't even taste good, unlike the delicious homemade cupcake underneath them, if I do say so myself. 

Lily undertaking the very serious task of feeding the bunny.
She clung to Grandy during her first pony ride but quickly loosened up.

Isabel, the other beautiful December birthday girl who shares Lily's love for animals, and my mom.
Party's over, folks.

Ok blog fiends, I've arrived with the dope. Sorry to be posting these pictures so late, but perhaps you could all pool your resources and buy me a computer for Christmas so we don't have an unfortunate delay like this again. I have been using Kyle's computer since our super old one crashed a few months ago, and he had it with him on a business trip since Saturday evening (the nerve!). I'm fairly certain my high productivity level over the past three days has had more to do with the computer being gone than with not having to make lunch for Kyle, but please don't tell him that. Anyway, the house is clean, the Christmas presents are wrapped and Lily and I have all but worn out her new birthday toys. We've been busy!

Lily's party was awesome. All last week I kept thinking that perhaps we wouldn't have such a big to-do every year, but now that it's over I think it was well worth it. Lily was suitably enamored with the pony (aptly named Sugar) and her barnyard pals. She and several of her friends who were offered the first ride were afraid at first but promptly changed their minds after seeing Blake, the brave cowboy, saddle 'er up like a pro. I was so proud of our little Texas boy! Lily rode Sugar until she was led into her trailer, then wanted to climb on the trailer to look at her through the window. And when she was on the pony, it totally looked like she knew what she was doing. Lily Harrell: Chinese Cowgirl-- just what her dad hoped she'd be. Well, he also hoped she'd have a Southern accent and that's not looking all that likely. But I digress. Lily held and fed the bunny, tried to ride the goat, and hung out in the pig pen. She giggled quite a bit on the pony, but for the most part it was serious business. That is one of the funniest things to me about her-- some kids play, she works. She's glad that other kids can just laugh and joke all day long, but they obviously don't realize how much work there is to be done. Just like her grandmothers. Anyway, after she saw to it that all the animals were taken care of, she let loose and entertained the crowd during Happy Birthday. She then proceeded to eat the sprinkles off, one by one. 

Stay tuned for pics in my next post of Lily and Santa.