Lin-Ley's Special Day

Six years ago last night we held this precious, chubby cheeked, baby girl for the first time.
Six years ago today we were officially a family.







Fast forward six years....

"Gotcha Day"
Yesterday was Lin-Ley's "Gotcha Day". That is the day you hold your baby for the first time.
The first prize of Lin-Ley's two-day, special-day extravaganza was a snow day! Dallas worked half-day and then I worked half-day and the kids played all day.
Once I arrived home Dallas and I sat a grinning Lin-Ley down so that we could tell her, once again, "Lin-Ley's Story". Just as it is a tradition to read "The Night Before Christmas" on Christmas Eve it is a tradition at our house to tell "Lin-Ley's Story" on Gotcha Day.
It seems that each year the story becomes more elaborate. Dallas like to slip in tidbits about the frequency in which baby Lin-Ley pooped, drooled, etc. She loves it all. This year she wanted to add to the story as well. She was a happy girl and went to bed last night knowing that today would be another special day. Her special day!

"Adoption Day"
Today marked the official start of our family. Although we had Lin-Ley with us for around twelve hours before the first piece of paper was signed (I still find that hard to believe) it was not official until we finished all of the paper work the following morning.
Two years ago we began allowing Lin-Ley to chose the dinner of her choice on this special day. And for the second time she chose Carrabba's Italian Grill. Ok by us!

Let the celebration begin!
















Party!












The menu item of choice - noodles of course!

















Ditto!















Lin-Ley stopped eating her pasta at one point and told us that she was full and that she was ready for her surprise cake.

"What cake? We did not order cake."

"Come on! You know I'm going to get a surprise cake on my Special Day!"

Of course she was right!

It is a school night so it was home for bath and bed. But we had more reminiscing to do first.

Here Lin-Ley lays with the clothes she was wearing the first night we held her. Yes, she was wearing all of these layers of clothes. We will never forget that night when we began undressing her for her bath. We kept peeling off layer after layer of clothing. We thought it was quite funny but soon learned that it is very traditional for young children to be dressed like that in China.



She loved the little kitty cat jacket.
















While were in China (in 2003) we visited a book store where we purchased these books for Lin-Ley hoping that she would some day learn to read them in Chinese. It was time to give them to her. She was thrilled and immediately began flipping through them for the characters she already knew.





Before tucking her in I brought out the clothes she wore the first night we were together. This was the onesie and cotton pants we changed her into after her first bath.











Six years!
Six years of growing!
Six years of learning!
Six years of family!
Six years of love!!

The books we gave Lin-Ley tonight inspired her to begin reading one of her Chinese textbooks. She requested that I video her speaking Chinese and send it to "all of the people who know me." So here you go:

Here Lin-Ley reads from her Chinese textbook... until she gets stumped...



Here Lin-Ley shares the names for some body parts and then she counts to 100. The counting has a few glitches but she eventually makes it through. This video is a little long but she refused to stop until she made it all the way to 100.