Lots Going On

Wow, the past few weeks have been non-stop. And I don't see life slowing down any time soon.

Hope & Maggie are doing great.  Hope has a new obsession/hobby.  It's jigsaw puzzles.  She spent 8 hours doing 5 different puzzles the other day. She came down long enough to eat, and then asked to go back upstairs. We tried to get her to go outside with her siblings but she wanted to do the puzzles.  So....looks like she will be getting more puzzles for Christmas because she has done just about every puzzle that we own. And she lines them up in her room for NOBODY to touch.

Maggie is bonding well with the girls.  She is trying so hard to be just like them. She loves to do arts & crafts and she loves to hang out with the girls.

They got their first report card a week or two ago.  They got all A's and B's.

Their English is coming along great.  They understand a lot of what we are saying to them.  And they are able to tell us a lot of what they are thinking too. I'm so glad communication is getting easier.  Hope still "cries" to get her way. It's not a real cry. It's fake. Because if we give her a look, she immediately starts to laugh and moves on.  Maggie has started to stomp her feet if she does not get something she wants. All we have to say is "Maggie cut it out" and she stops and says "Sorry" and then acts good again.  It's amazing how quickly they have learned how to do this.  And Bill & I have decided that they have been home for almost 4 months, we need to stop giving in to everything, especially their tantrums.

Maggie still has issues with taking things that are not hers.  She does not understand that Abby & Jadyn have a lot of toys that have been here for years. Some things are their personal things (like notebooks and books etc).  Maggie thinks if she sees it, it's hers. She will take it and hide it and sometimes even write her name on it.  It has caused some issues between the girls. We are trying to help Maggie to understand.

They both went to the eye doctor last week and they both need glasses. Hope more than Maggie.  Of course, they had to order their lenses so we are waiting for them to come in.  The girls are excited.  I will take pictures once they have them to wear.

Our family grew again.  We adopted a dog. Everyone is so happy.  We named her Nala.  She HAD to have a Disney character name.  Nala is from The Lion King.  She is a good dog. She's 3 years old and house broken.  YAY!  The only negative thing is she sheds. Dog hair is everywhere!  :-(

Last week we took all of the kids to the Friends & Family night for the marching band that Tiffani is in.  I wanted them to see the show.  Maggie loved it. She said she wants to do this when she's older.

We put our tree up this week.  Hope & Maggie were confused by what we were doing.  They said "No Christmas in Huainan".  They had fun putting up the ornaments.  They were sad that they did not have any personal ones yet. I told them that we will get them some.  They did make one the other day and proudly hung it on the tree.

Yesterday we took the kids to Downtown Disney.  Oh my.....Hope & Maggie were so excited.  This is their first "taste" of Disney World.  I can only imagine the excitement they will experience when we walk through The Magic Kingdom gates for the first time.  Each of our kids picked out a new ornament for this year.  Then we told them they could each pick 1 thing to buy.  They each chose a Lego kit.  We also went to The Rain Forest Cafe for lunch.  They had a blast, but said it was "too loud".  We also let them get Cotton Candy (we all shared a bag).

5:00 finally came and we went in line to meet Santa. Hope & Maggie were excited. They kept practicing "Hi Santa, Nice to meet you".  :-)  Santa was great!  We waited about 20 minutes to meet him and they let Abby & Jadyn go first.  Then they let Hope & Maggie go.  Then they let all 4 girls go back to see Santa.  You can tell in the photos how happy they all were.  Hope's smile in one of the photos is precious to me.  Very genuine.

We had a great day yesterday. We are itching to go to the Disney parks.  Who knows, maybe (hopefully) soon.

The girls are excited about Thanksgiving. They tell everyone "Happy Thanksgiving".  I can't wait until they see how much they are allowed to eat.   :-)

We have SO much to be Thankful for this year.........
Happy Thanksgiving from our family to yours!

Well I've tried several times to add photos to this post and blogger says I'm out of photo space.  :-(  I'll try again later.