Riding, Singing, Speaking

When the kids and I arrived home Friday afternoon Dallas was waiting with the tractor (having just finished the first grass mowing of the year) to give the kids a ride.

They hopped in the trailer and off they went.


This picture cracks me up because Dallas was jerking the tractor forward and stopping quickly while the kids were being jerked around as if they were on a bucking bull. You can see Tru's foot flying up in the air as Dallas takes off again.


Lin-Ley gets her turn behind the wheel.





























Lin-Ley is driving. Hold on tight Tru!

Today at church all of the children from age 2 through 4th grade sang two songs together. They did a great job. Lin-Ley is right in the middle to the right of Mercy (wearing the hair band).



This was Tru's first "performance". I had watched him in rehearsals for the past several weeks and he stood very still and did not participate at all.
Today he surprised us by not only singing but also attempting all of the choreography.

Tru is on the bottom row, third from the left (clapping his hands).


I tried to get all of the kids in one shot.


As soon as we were done at church it was home for a very quick lunch and we were off to Chinese School. Lin-Ley's class participated in a school wide speech contest today. They all recited a poem together then they each had a turn to recite individually.

Lin-Ley is in the middle (again) wearing the Sailor dress. She loves that dress (and so do I) but the song "Good Ship Lolipop" keeps running through my mind when I see it.


Quote of the Day:
"Everybody Clap!"
Tru Herpin
At the end of their second song in church Tru began clapping, yelled "everybody clap", and led the congregation in their applause. There were chuckles heard...

Happy Easter 2009

Spring Break! Lin-Ley has had a fun week of goofing off with her friends. The church she has been going to had a theme for each day: silly hat day, pajama day, etc.


Lin-Ley wanted to participate in crazy hair day. So, we worked on her hair for about 30 minutes the night before putting in as many braids as we could.












The purpose of the braids was to have her hair look wild and wavy the next morning after we took out the braids.














However, the more she looked at herself in the mirror she thought perhaps she might just leave the braids in instead.
Because that was not the initial plan, and I had not braided her hair in the neatest fashion, we finally compromised the next morning by taking out all of the braids except for the two nearest to her face.










The following day was Sports Day at both of their schools. Lin-Ley's hair is still rather wild from the braids.

We're not exactly sure what's going on with Tru's latest smiles for the camera.











Good Friday meant even the church was closed (for child care) so Lin-Ley had to join me at work. She was greeted with Easter baskets from Granny Howard. She had made a beautiful basket for both of the kids. Lin-Ley was more than happy to accept on Tru's behalf!




Of course we had to dye Easter eggs on Saturday.

Tru took advantage of the eggs that burst during the boiling.













Lin-Ley watches the clock until she can remove the eggs from the dye.

Tru is eating another egg but for some reason needs to smell it first.


Another egg (to eat)!



Time to get ready for the Easter Bunny!
Baskets out - ready to be filled.


A snack for the Easter Bunny. Celery, an egg shaped cookie and a glass of water.


Goofing around.












Trying to put off bed time as long as possible.















The Easter Bunny arrived at last.

Lin-Ley's basket.


















Tru's basket.


Lin-Ley loved her Littlest Pet Shop animals and Tru was thrilled with his Choo-Choo.



Early morning candy consumption..












Time for church.
Lin-Ley was so happy to be wearing her new "Cinderella" dress.
So proud!
















Tru - not so happy! He decided that he did not want to wear his new outfit. Once I forced it onto his body he began screaming and tried to pull his vest and shirt off. This photo came about 30 minutes later. Still not happy!
















Ready to go. There was a big Easter Egg hunt after church.
















Annual visit with the Easter Bunny!











There's Tru new smile again.

Happy Easter!!

Song Of The Day:

"He's Alive!" By: Dolly Parton
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UbRPWUHM80M

Spring Has Sprung - Finally!

Finally this weekend the weather was nice enough to let the kids go out and play. They wasted no time and they both went out to the field and plopped down in the grass.

It was a little chilly only because the wind was blowing.






























Perfect Easter Egg hiding grass!













Dallas and the kids eventually disappeared from the field and were along side the house preparing one of their gardening spots. They were all using their lawn tools. Predictably Lin-Ley began collecting worms. Soon there was a knock on the door...

Look Mom!

















So proud of her newest worm family.
















Lin-Ley wanted to share her joy of worms with Tru. He agreed to hold the slimy critters but he was not going to take him eyes off of them.
(He does not like to get his hands dirty!)
















Then today the winds were gone, the sun was out and it was a perfect day. More outside time.

Tru went straight for the Barbie Jeep.

















Daddy's helper.











Dallas and Lin-Ley made another trip to Home Depot today. Today's purchase included tomato, cucumber and onion plants.
They started on another garden patch.







Why-Oh-Why does she enjoy getting so dirty???!!!





Ta-Da. Ready to plant.
















As I mentioned Tru was showing off his wild style of driving today. He drives with no hands, drives into the fence frequently, gets stuck more often than that and sometimes, apparently, he gets so excited he falls right out of the car....
Here is a clip of his crazy driving. The clip is a bit long but the first five seconds are priceless. We watched it over and over and Tru loved it!

Video For The Docs

Tru has a big appointment tomorrow at the Limb Deficiency Clinic. Lisa, his physical therapist, wanted to show the doctors Tru's progress in therapy as well as with his new leg and knee. This was the best way to give the doctors access to the video.

So... without further delay... here is Tru with his new leg and his new knee (which he is using quite well!). I hear the theme music from "Rocky" when I watch this video...





GO TRU!! GO TRU!!


By the way - April 1st is a memorable day:
It was 18 years ago today that Dallas arrived home from the first Gulf War (4/1/1991).

Airborne

Our dog, Airborne, who would have been 18 years old this week went to doggie heaven this weekend. In honor of her, our first child, I wanted to share some photos....

Smiling Watermelons

Dallas took Lin-Ley to Home Depot today. They looked at the usual items you need this time of year: lawn tools, plants, seeds, etc. Lin-Ley was allowed to pick out a cup of seeds for Tru and herself. She picked out gourds for Tru and watermelons for herself.

Here is a photo of the cup Lin-Ley picked out for herself:

On the way home she asked Dallas,

"How long will it take my watermelons to look like that?"

"Look like what?"

"You know, with the smiley faces on it?"

Dallas smiled and told her that her watermelons would not have smiley faces - it was just a picture.

Lin-Ley was instantly upset. She said she never would have chosen those seeds if she would have know that!

When Dallas told me that story I could not help but laugh.

A few minutes later Lin-Ley came over and I told her that I could not wait until her watermelons grew because I had never seen watermelons with faces on them. She looked immediately at Dallas and we all started laughing.

It's the little things....

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.