My Daughter's 4th Birthday

E's 4th birthday party was lots of fun. The kids ran around for an hour, then we had pizza and cake in the party room, and then they played for another half hour. We have two truly pooped children.

Here is the party room...(the before picture)



Here is dad, cousin J, E and Uncle C up in the Safari Stop playground.





Here is Z at the bottom of the slide. Even though he was really too small to play on the equipment, he had a good time.

Here is E enjoying her party.

Z and E doing what they do best.....having fun and playing together.

Here is E and me coming down the fast tiger slide. E went down the slide on my lap and as you can see, the slide was so fast that it was a bit out of control, but very fun.

Here is a pic of T and cousin M.

The Mc boys (that's Z's head in the front).

E and A playing in the tree.

Pizza time in the party room!

The birthday cake. Silly me, I thought that E would like the "shimmering butterfly" theme, however, Spiderwoman (not Spiderman) won out. Note that she wore her Spiderwomen costume to the party.

Here is a great shot of the birthday girl and her cake.

Enjoying the birthday cake!

My Ballerina/Construction Worker

I think the picture says it all.

My Son's Baptism

Z was baptized on Sunday. It was really great. As you all know, the wait to actually get matched with Z was over 18 months. A lot of that time I spent thinking about Z's baptism.

Our pastor M, is a very good friend of ours. We were very, very happy that he was able to do the baptism for us. The other pastor in the pictures is R. She is also wonderful.

Here is a photo of the four of us before the service. We are all dressed in our Chinese silks to celebrate Z.

Here are a few photos of the actual baptism.

Z didn't even cry when M held him or when he poured the water on his head.

The actual baptism.

After the baptism, we went to our favorite Chinese restaurant for lunch. T's parents were there and the Mc family joined us. We had a private room. Our waiter was impressed with our Chinese outfits and spoke to Z in Chinese.

Z is really learning to use a spoon and fork now. Sometimes he will only eat if he gets to hold his fork/spoon.

The children had their own table.

Then we went home and had a cake to celebrate. We watched the video of when we actually got Z. All in all it was a great day.

My Daughter's Birthday Party

We celebrated E's birthday this weekend. We made her a chocolate bear cake. She decorated it herself (with a little bit of help).



Here is E blowing out her candles.

And the beautiful four year old (almost).

My Family's Thanksgiving

Well here we are celebrating Thanksgiving. We, of course, have so much to be thankful for. Z has joined our family this year and E remains healthy. We are very, very thankful for both of those things.

Here is E enjoying an orange on Thanksgiving morning as she helped me make the cranberry sauce.




Here is Z and his dad playing after desert this evening.



Here is a photo of our beautiful Thanksgiving table before we sat down to eat.

We fried two 15 pound turkeys! They smelled delicious and tasted juicy!

T and I as he carved our turkey. We couldn't help ourselves and picked at it at he carved.

Here we all are sitting down to dinner. Z didn't wake up from his nap until just a few moments later.

My Kids Day at the Park

The weather here has been so mild that we've been able to still spend lots of time outdoors. This was Z's first real trip to run around at a park. He had a wonderful time. E loved it too. This is a wheelchair accessable park. It's a lot of fun.

My Son's First Ride on a Bike

Here is Z riding his sister's bike. He can climb on by himself and push his feet forwards and backwards. Sometimes at home, he'll push he little walker around. He especially thinks its funny when he walks backwards.

Here is E "cleaning" a book. We were playing in the garage the other day when T was on call. She cleaned almost everything in site.