Happy Chinese New Year!

Chinese New Year officially started on February 7th and today we had a small celebration. We invited over our friends Tracy and Tim and their daughter to celebrate. They adopted their little girl from China at the same time that Mat and I adopted Cainan. The made the trip with Mat, so it was special and fun to celebrate our kid's first Chinese New Year together. We took some pictures, and Tracy took some. Our pictures are below and once Tracy sends me hers, I will add those. We had a lot of fun! Now, I don't cook well, so we ordered the Chinese food! But we had a few Chinese decorations and the kids had fun Chinese things to play with and we had a nice evening. And it was nice to catch up with Tracy and Tim. This was also the first time Mat has had a chance to see their little girl since we have been back from China, so that was fun too. She and Cainan both look very different! The kids had a great time playing together. Arlington was the hero of the evening and all the little ones liked playing with her and following her around. The food was yummy and I think it was a very successful Chinese New Year! Hopefully as the years go on we meet more and more families and our celebrations will grow in numbers.

The rest of the week was fine. Cainan had speech therapy on Thursday and that went well. He is starting to blow air through his mouth and actually got a bubble out of the bubble blower this week! That was great. I had to take Finley, and every time the speech therapist asked Cainan to say something, Finley would say it! Then, of course, Cainan wouldn't. That is the toughest part. I have to take her, but she is like a little parrot and repeats everything we say. But the speech therapist thinks she is funny. I am able to distract Finley most of the time so that the therapist can work with Cainan.

After therapy we went to my old job for a little while to visit. They have been asking to see me and the kids, so I took the babies down there to say hello! We spent about 1 hour there catching up with everyone and letting them ooh and ahh over the little ones. They haven't seen Cainan since about October, so he looked really different! The babies had a good time there because, of course, I worked at a center with all children, so there were tons of toys and kids to play with! I do miss seeing them, but I am happy where I am now. We are settling into a routine and I get less and less sad about leaving the work world behind every day. I know that someday I will return, but for now, this is good.

Friday night we went to our friends house for a fun evening of socialization and food. It was co-workers of Mat and all of their families. These are long time friends of ours and we always have fun together. We all have kids around the same age, so the kids always have a great time, and I love the adult conversation! It wore all the kids out and they all slept in this morning.

That is about it! Kids are all doing great. Arlington is actually starting to write sentences with all the words she is learning. She has learned the words to the point that she knows them beyond sight recognition that that huge sponge of a brain of hers has remembered how they are spelled as well. Today she wrote "Grammy and Papa had a big bike". We are really proud of her and how well she is doing! I can see Harvard now.......

Finley has learned a few new words, but some of them are escaping me right now! I know she is saying "brother" "chip" "pretzel". She said "big blue ball" yesterday which shocked me! She has language skills like Arlington did. Just picking it up quick. Although, she isn't as interested in anything else! Oh, she did start recognizing "A" finally! About time!

Cainan's new word is "Elmo" He loves Elmo and he started to say it. I also had a chance to weigh him this week and he was 20 pounds, 12 ounces! Whoo-hoo! Almost 21 pounds. He LOOKS bigger - really has filled out in his arms and legs, which were as skinny as sticks before! Adding the half and half to his milk has really helped. He remains on the high fat diet, and hopefully he will be out of 12 month size pants really soon! They are getting short, so pretty soon we are going to have to move on!

That is it! Tomorrow is church - we teach Sunday school again. Then this week starts the "birthday festivities" for Arlington. We have a very busy week ahead and are looking forward to my parents arrival on Tuesday. It will be nice to have them here for awhile.

Here are some pictures! Enjoy! By the way, the outfits my three are wearing are from my parents. They all match! Finley and Arlington have pretty little dresses from China, but Finley spilled something on hers, of course. Cainan has about a million outfits. But Arlington really wanted everyone to match (she loves to match her sister!) so these were the evenings outfits!