Last night Rebecca called and said, "hey, are you busy tonight or tomorrow?" Well, of course not...ha ha We did have a skating party last night so we took her up on her offer to 'crash' her Tonggu reunion. We do know most of the families as they either were in our big travel group (we went to Hubei and they went to Jiangxi) or they live here and we know them through that.

Here is my Hubei Honey with those Jiangxi girls (sorry, couldn't think of a cute J word)

*Annslee, Aidyn, Katie, Zola, Josie, Seely & Tessa

When they did a Tonggu pic Mary gave Annslee her camera so she could participate too : )

I had to throw this one in of Darby who is Sutton's beautiful daughter from Vietnam. (Her sister is Seely in the shades in the couch picture.) I keep promising her I will add another Vietnamese girl to this China party : )

It was time to give a good-bye hug and it was really sweet but Josie wasn't ready for an Annslee hug~

so this is what happened! Hey, you have to steady yourself when Annslee hugs you : )

Yesterday the weather was perfect ~ partly cloudy and 74 degrees ~ so a Zoo trip was needed. We had a great time except for the 3 times I had to have a "chat" with her about stopping the whining *sigh* Come on, we were at the Zoo afterall...be happy!! She is really becoming so independent these days and although it is a great thing it is also challenging like when Mama has to go potty and she doesn't and she "thinks" she will just wait outside by the stroller and not come in with me!

The flowers were really pretty and she wanted to pick one but I had to keep pointing out the sign saying to "leave the flowers for others to enjoy" Seriously, check out that contemplative look ~ she is trying hard to decide which one is best : )

Yes, we rode the carousel more than once

The big new thing of the day was "tending" (pretending) that Zoe (her Gigi's dog) was with us at the Zoo. This picture is when it started. We were looking at the cougar and suddenly she squatted down to "pet" Zoe and it continued all day. She has always been so good at imaginative play and will stay 'in character' for a long time but she now will say or do something and say "tend" about it : )

Isn't that what a day with a 3 year old is ~ well, except for the "exerting your independence part" lol

After her shower last night this was the "look" she went for (notice the pen hanging like Daddy does his)


She is very serious about her flowers getting enough sun and water. The ones in the pot she painted last week are coming up and she is so excited!



Our art project today involved foil, glitter, paper and LOTS of glue! It is very pretty in the sunlight and is currently in our kitchen window : )

As usual she carried a stick around the entire time. Usually this is a "wand" but mostly today it was a walking stick.

It was a little chilly today but she kept saying "home no" over and over so we did a lot of inspecting of plants and flowers and generally just enjoying the morning.

Two baskets waiting for two little girls. Of course for the second year in a row Malia's would be attended to by her big sister. Funny when Annslee saw the book in Malia's basket she looked at us and said "Malia share" : )


Of course you have to bite the ears off your bunny first!

The bunny brought two movies, some bubbles, candy, and lots of other goodies including a purple bean bag chair. By far her favorite gifts were the purple peep purse and the lip gloss. She has carried the lip gloss around and her lips are always shiny : )

After cleaning up we went to church where Miss Annslee felt particularly sassy in her dress~ notice she has lip gloss in one hand and a motorcycle in the other : )

We picked some fresh flowers in a nearby field for her to add to the cross

Here is our attempt at a family photo~ yeah, she was being silly

After nap we went to my sister's house for dinner and an egg hunt. There were about 150 eggs and three kids hunting. My seven year old nephew hunted but wasn't still enough for any pictures so here are the two "little" ones and yes, notice she found the golden prize egg!

Here are the cousins before the hunt and for those keeping count, this is her 5th one this year!

Jacob, Gabe and Annslee with their LOOT!

As promised here are some pics of the egg dyeing : )

There are a lot more pictures from my sister's house but I will save those for later : )

This morning we got up and Annslee had waffles and hot & spicy cheese-its for breakfast then we headed to the FCC egg hunt! Of course Mia was there so big hugs were in order : )

Last year the girls started off on the swings too ~ go HERE to see all those pictures (then come on back)
She is a hunting master now...basically it is Chinese squat, egg, Chinese squat, egg , etc...it is pretty effective and she did get a lot of eggs!

I am sure someone got a better group shot than I did and I will post it if I get it but this one cracked me up. Basically Annslee was sick of us trying to get a pic of all the kids so she put her bucket on head which did get a big laugh from all the parents (enlarge if you need to but she is the one with the purple bucket on her head LOL)

Here she is with Jia~ another Qichun girl who lives here. Qichun is a very small villiage in Hubei so it is amazing that we have a family so close!

Annslee is going to be such a great big sister....she loves pushing others on the swing

After the FCC egg hunt we went to our second one of the day and the Easter Bunny was there : )

There was a lot of art and crafts and of course she loved the painting part

She saw the Easter Bunny a few times and kept telling "him" alll about the carrot she was leaving for him

Our girl LOVES animals so she really wanted this bird to sit on her finger

and gave this bunny lots of kisses!

Earlier today we went to the grocery store and she picked out the "best" carrot for the Easter Bunny (seriously she spent a long time looking through all the carrots looking for the perfect one) She also wanted to give the EB the picture of the rabbit she made at school this week ~ hope he likes all of it : )

*We did color eggs tonight but I already had so many pics I thought I would wait and post those later. Happy Easter to everyone : )

We put on her Easter Dress and went to take some pictures. I took 230 pictures so I haven't had time to go through them. Honestly, the sun was really bright and I haven't learned all I need to about my camera but with a subject as cute as mine I still got some good shots. I will go through them and post more later : )







I rarely do black and white with her but I loved the look of this one with the focal black and white :)




*this has nothing to do with these pics but we just got home from our Good Friday service and I have to tell you all that my new little "talker" was making me laugh ~ not really appropriate for the service. She finally is "parroting" something most kids do around 18 months or so. Tonight when the pastor was reading scripture she was repeating some of the words "son" "done" "ear" "man" and speaking of ear when they got to the part where Peter cut off the slave's ear, Annslee said "uh oh!" rather loudly. : )