MAYLIN2007

Everyday, and I mean everyday, Maylin says, "Mom. Horse. Peese. Walk." This means, can we go on a walk and see the horses. Of course, I say yes. How can you say no to Peese? Even today in the freezing snow we went and saw a horse. Good thing there are several families on our street who have horses. She loves to talk to them, wave to them, but touch them....forget it. She will touch them for about 2 seconds and then pulls her hand away in a squeal, but man she likes to talk to them. We bought her some toy horses. They go everywhere with us. Hopefully, this doesn't mean we have to get her a real one when she is older.

Today we met our friends at McDonald's for breakfast and a play date! Maylin loved being with her friends and called them all by name: Anna, ibby (Libby), Liza (Eliza), and Emie(Emily). There were kisses, hugs, laughs and good times all around. Everyone got along perfectly. Even Alex was liked by the girls. Eliza called him "boy" and would say "come on boy" or if she couldn't find him would just stand and call, "boy, boy." He loved the attention. It was so wonderful for me too, to get to visit with other moms and hear about potty training ideas, language and food issues, and discipline ideas and worries. Libby told her dad she was going to see her "best born China girls" today. I think she did. These girls are the best!

Can I tell you, how things change when you are two?! Well it is a lot! Everyday there is something new. Maylin has never, ever had to be in time-out. Well yesterday, she kept hitting our neighbor's little girl, so she landed there twice. Tonight she landed there 4 times. Hopefully this phase will end as quickly as it came. Here are a few fun photos and a few fun facts! *She weighs 26 pounds and is almost 35 inches tall. (Just shy as the nurse said.) *She says Bonjour and Boo Ya. *She did pretty well on the potty for a few days. Now she hates it. *She is into horses and asks to see them everyday. So for the past 4 days we have walked down to our neighbor's house and hung out in the pasture. *She eats salads for breakfast, lunch and dinner. *She doesn't like it when Jay and I hug. She wants to be included. So our time becomes a group hug.

Last year for Easter, we had only been home from China for about 2 weeks. I was looking at the pictures of last year and man, have all my children grown! Where is time going? Saturday as we did the Easter egg hunt, Maylin knew what to do. She saw the kids run, so she ran. She saw them find eggs, so she found eggs. They put them in their baskets, and she tried, but she missed every time and the egg would fall to the ground. It was funny. The kids had more fun watching her and helping her find the eggs than they did doing it on their own. We also colored eggs which was a real treat. We made tie dye, glitter eggs. They turned out wonderfully, but what was I thinking? There is glitter everywhere! We will probably still have glitter until next Easter. Maylin got a little bike for Easter. She thinks she is dang cool! AND, I was also crazy enough to buy 5 little baby chicks. Yep! Let's add one more thing to that list of "to-dos." The kids have named them all and Maylin loves to ...

Its been a wonderful year since this very special day! We will never forget this moment. You could tell she loved her foster mother so much and she was heart broken to come to us, but within a day she was attached to us and wouldn't go back. The feelings I had that day were very similar to those I had when I gave birth to my biological children...excitement, fear, tenderness, joy all rolled into one. A year later, the fear is gone, but the other joyous feelings remain. We know each other well and love each other more than you can imagine. It brings us all joy when she calls us by name, says "home", calls herself Nini and calls her things and her room, "Nini's". We are so happy she knows that she belongs. Lately are hearts have been filled with her little words, "La Boo" which means love you. We have been waiting for her to say those wonderful words!

I have debated about whether or not to post today, for today was our Gotcha Day for our referral baby, Jia Kang. It is also her birthday. Even though it has been a year and I know Maylin is our daughter, I struggle with guilt feelings over our decision to not take Jia Kang. I think of it less and less, but I at least think of it weekly and I have dreams about her living in a cage because I didn't adopt her. The rest of my family rarely thinks of it anymore, but I guess as the mother, I still do. When our guide stayed with us a few weeks ago, she gave us an update on Kang Kang. She said they did a cat scan and she had an area of her brain that reflected a severe "brain paralysis" as they called it in China. Our guide said it was caused by a trauma. She said Kang Kang had a new foster family and that her physical and mental delays were severe. The foster family was taking her to therapy to help her strengthen her muscles, but she didn't have much muscle control. She als...

Kenzie danced at our pro basketball team's game the other night. She had a blast.

Maylin is a copy cat. Really, I have never had a child that copies so much. Even in China when she really didn't understand us, she was copying. For example we sang to her, with actions, "Itsy Bitsy Spider." She was doing the actions back to us in minutes. Our guide was so amazed. She kept saying, "Wow, she must be smart." As she has grown she has taken this to a new level. You have to be so careful what you are doing. She will be sitting next to you on the couch and will watch you, and then place her legs, feet, arms, hands, exactly how you have them. There will be times at church I will look at her and she is studying someone and then she will start chewing gum like them, putting her hand on her face like them etc. It is amazing. She works so hard to even get her little fingers just like the person she is watching. So on to the picture. The other day, she was in the bathroom while I was helping Kenzie color her eyebrows with a make-up pencil. Yep, the poor gir...

Yep, folks that's right...Maylin went pee pee in the potty all by herself today! Don't think she meant to, I just think it just happened to occur while she was playing "potty". We got her a little potty months ago. Lately, she will pull off her diaper, sit on it, push and then stand up and hand you her diaper to put it back on. She never has gone. In fact, when she is trying to go poo poo and I can tell, I have placed her on the potty and she will scream and hold it in. Today, I think was a lucky accident, so to make it memorable, we high fived, called dad, did a potty dance etc. Hopefully it was fun enough, next time it will be for real. The picture below is one from the photo album Maylin's orphanage gave to us. We feel so lucky to have it. It probably has 20 pictures of her from the day she was found until about 1 year old. I picked this picture to scan in and enlarge to an 8 X 10 so I could hang it on the wall in my bedroom with my other kids' baby picture...

Okay, okay, its not frightful, but its cold, windy, wet and I am down right tired of it. I am looking for a day above 55 with great sunshine and blue skies. Anyone know when that will be arriving? I was taking down my Christmas lights from my outside trees today, okay I know it has been months, but I wasn't going to do it in 3 feet of snow, and it started out nice and then bam! It rained. Come on, I am just looking for a few days of good weather. Maylin needs it too. She wants to stay outside, not just play until you are to cold to do it anymore. So, to cheer on the warmth, here are some pictures of our trip to St. George, UT that we took over President's Day weekend. St. George is about an hour and half north of Las Vegas. My parents have a second home there. Since they wouldn't be seeing my girls on their birthdays we had an early party for them. We had a great time. Swimming, playing, being warm.....what more could you want? Let me just say, perhaps as a recommendation.....

McKenzie turned 12 today. That means one more year and she is a teenager and I will be the mother of two teens, a 9 year old and a toddler. Hmmmm. Kenzie is such a good girl and a wonderful sister. We couldn't ask for a better daughter! For her b-day she got 3 outfits, 2 pair of flip flops, a horse for her American Girl Doll, a CD and a game. She was thrilled! Maylin, learned a little to much yesterday as she thought the presents were hers. She wasn't too happy when Kenzie opened them! Oh well! We are having her friends party next week at the famous pottery place we took our guide Judy! Thanks to our far away families that sent clothes, lip glosses, money and a very cool singing Hannah Montana card!

Today is Maylin's 2nd birthday!!! Tomorrow is McKenzie's birthday!!! She will be 12. What a wonderful week! We have been talking to Maylin about her birthday for weeks now. Everytime we say, "Its your b-day soon" or "You will be turning 2 on your b-day" she says, "NO!" We have tried singing to her too, and she tells us to SHHHH! After weeks of this we have been a little nervous about how the big day would really go. This morning I made her cake and Kenzie's. I let her help. I sang to her during the baking event. I kept hoping this would help her get it. She loved using the mixer (even though I ended up with a lot of batter on my shirt) and enjoyed frosting the cake, I mean herself. She thought it was great smearing the frosting on her legs. Even though the cake bake ended up messy and longer than needed, we had fun and she got the point of it being her birthday.By the time her siblings got home she was running around with her presents...her fin...