Our first Chinese New Year

January 23rd was the official Chinese New Year - marking the beginning of the Year of the Dragon. We have been waiting years and years to celebrate this occasion with our little one so this year was super special. The official celebration here in our city wasn't until the weekend so I just dressed Lily in her Chinese silk outfit and snapped some pictures. She is just now fitting in to the smallest size that these dresses come in. When we were in China we bought her various sizes hoping we would have outfits for her for every year at least until she's a teenager (or until we go back to China for a visit).

Happy Chinese New Year!!

Gymboree!

Since Pop Pop watches Lily while mommy and daddy are at work, she is a little starved for interaction with other kids so we decided to join Gymboree. It really is a cool place with lots of fun equipment and toys that give our little one a chance to play with (or along side) kids and to
have some challenges that our toys at home can't provide. The first time we went it was with our friends Karen, Tony and Sophie. It was loads of fun. Pop Pop has been with us too and we look forward to going back very soon. Here are some pictures of our fun days so far...

Readoption Day

Although our adoption was final while we were in China, we chose to re-adopt here in our state in order to get Lily a state birth certificate and make it easier for her and us in the future. Some states require re-adoption and some don't...ours doesn't but we did it anyway. It's quite a ceremonious occasion and one last chance for us to be swamped with paperwork.

We actually submitted the paperwork months and months ago and had our court date on January12th at 2:30pm. We put on some half-way schmancy clothes...

And went to the courthouse. The bottom line is us - the "Adoption: Dispositional Hearing for JTM & NBM". That's us.

We sat outside and waited for our turn as the other family court cases filed in and out of the courtroom.

Grandma and Pop Pop joined us for the special day...with Lily winking at us. :) In just a couple minutes of paper shuffling and verification that all the proper paperwork was present, we were done and posing with a picture of Judge Friday.

And off to celebrate with some Chinese food.

With the most perfect little girl who was pronounced ours once again.

And who loves her Aunt Brandee
And Pop Pop and Grandma

So proud to be a family :)

Lily and Daddy

Lily and Daddy are little love bugs. It is so sweet to watch them together. She says "da-da" all the time and I think at least half the time she uses it to call her daddy. When I ask her where he is, she looks right at him or, when he's not there, right at his spot on the couch. This weekend Jeff gave me the chance to sleep a little later and, when I got up, Lily wanted to keep playing with her daddy an wanted nothing to do with mommy. I guess there is nothing like the love between a daddy and his little girl.