Pigtails!

Pigtails! The little stinker still won't let me do her hair but she giggles when Miss Amy or Ms. Astoria (her teachers) do it so I gave them a bunch of hair ties and she's been coming home in pigtails. Since she still hasn't had a haircut, she's got plenty of hair for them!

I've lost the blogging bug as of late but a quick update on Zoe...she's doing great! She learns new words every day, is using verbs and some two word phrases, counts to 3 clearly and 4 and 5 are emerging, has her color words (but is still working on matching the word to the color..seems to know green and blue more than others), says her teacher's name, does the body motions to numerous songs, loves completing Melissa and Doug puzzles, knows and can say circle and star and can pick out a square, and just gets taller every day :) Still trying to put weight on her. She eats well but will probably continue to track on the lower end of the weight chart. She's a 18-24 month on top due to her height, but bottoms are 12-18 month and she could probably still wear 6-12 if they weren't so short. Most importantly, and in writing this I'm jinxing it, we've all been sleeping through the night for a while now :) I think she's growing again right now though so that may change. We're looking so forward to seeing all the family out in Illinois in few weeks and can't wait for everyone to meet Zoe! Oh, and our house is back on the market as of tomorrow...wish us luck this time around!

My Excellent News

No pictures....sorry family....however, I have great news to share. After 9 years of harrassing my boss, I'm finally going to get a 10.5 month contract. So, no more snow days, all the teacher holidays, and only 11 extra working days in the summer. I'm so excited. It's a paycut, of course, but instead of dropping my university teaching like I planned to I'm going to continue with at least the highest paying course to make up the salary difference. 5 weeks off in the summer. I can hardly wait!!!

I can't believe it's been a year

I can't believe it's been a year since we first saw our daughter's face. At this time last year I had just received the e-mail from our agency telling me that they had our referral. I knew they would call around 3pm so I headed to lunch with a friend of mine who helped keep me calm until it was time to go home for the call. I remember vividly my friend Melanie calling to congratulate me on our daughter. Since I hadn't gotten the phone call yet I told her that we weren't sure it was a girl. I can still here her say "They're all girls!" Apparently she had received an e-mail from our agency saying that all of the referrals were for girls. At that moment I didn't care about anything else, I was so happy to have a daughter. Eric and I would have loved a son with all our hearts, but we were really hoping for a daughter for our first child. Melanie let me go so I could get the call from the agency and with paper and pen ready I took the call. While I had all intentions of writing all the information down, I think I wrote maybe her Chinese name and birthdate. The agency sent our baby's pictures to my e-mail and in the longest 5 minutes of my life I waited for Eric to get home before I opened them so we could see her face for the first time together. Our Zoe. Then the shopping began..and really has yet to end! Every day I'm overwhelmed with the gift China gave to us. She could not be more loved and we could not be happier.