Sarae's first Christmas play at church

Getting ready for Christmas!

Happy Thanksgiving!!

Sarae and I had a great Thanksgiving. We made turkey cookies using her hand as a template and celebrated with family. Sarae studied Native Americans in her preschool and brought home all sorts of Thanksgiving art. I had to include the picture of "Princess Cody" to show what a good sport he is and of course I had to include a picture of Princess Sarae. Hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Sarae's first trophy!

Our neighborhood clubhouse had a Halloween Party and Sarae won best costume. She was Mariposa (butterfly fairy) from the Barbie movie. She also won a big bag of candy playing Boo Bingo. We had a great time!

Happy Halloween!

Sarae and I have been celebrating Halloween all month. We went to the pumpkin patch and picked out a pumpkin. Here in Florida, a carved pumpkin won't last more than 2-3 days so we chose to decorate it as opposed to carving it. We then went with her friend Savannah, Savannah's sister Sierra and Vanessa, their mom, to Spooktacular at Sea World. We were there for 7 hours and had a wonderful and exhausting time. Next we went to my mom's church's fall festival. Another classmate of Sarae's was there and they had a great time in the bounce houses. Finally we went to the Zoo for their Halloween festivities with Henry and Francie which was fun as usual. Next week we will go to a Halloween party and trick or treat in the clubhouse here in our neighborhood. Hope everyone is having as good of a time as we are!

The summer is flying by!

Sarae started her new preschool this past week and I am happy to report she loves it! I love the fact that it has a webcam and I actually get to watch her while she is there. If you ask her what her favorite thing is at her new school, she will tell you it is the playground. There is an indoor playground and she goes to it 2-3 times per day which makes her very happy. She also loves her new teacher and her new friends. Thanks to Aunt Lynne and Uncle Dave, Sarae has a great time pretending she is a chef. She also likes to pretend she is "Super Sarae" and the "jewelry diva". It has been an incredibly hot summer and the only way to possibly stay outside is to be in water. Thanks again to Aunt Lynne and Uncle Dave, Sarae has a very cool sprinkler fun pad. We had a unexpected visit from Butch, in June, who came home from college for a family reunion. Sarae was thrilled to see him and spend some quality "lollipop" time with him. Hope everyone is staying cool!

Vacation Time!

My mom treated Tia, Sarae and myself to a vacation at Amelia Island Plantation Resort. It was wonderful, we had a two bedroom villa that backed up to a lagoon. It was beautiful and just minutes away from the beach. The resort was fantastic - one night they had a bonfire on the beach and we got to make s'mores, they had bike/hiking trails throughout the resort, restaurants and shops on property and trams to take you everywhere in case you didn't want to walk. Tia and I were able to go horseback riding on the beach which was a great experience. After fun-filled days, it was great to relax back at the villa which was absolutely beautiful. A raccoon would even stop by each evening to say hello. I'm hoping that was the first of many vacations to Amelia Island!

Look who's relaxing on vacation!

Here's Sarae enjoying breakfast in bed, what you can't see is the large flatscreen t.v. she is watching while lying in bed. Next she hit the beach for some sandcastle building and jumping in the waves. After dinner we went on a "walk" and finally she needed to relax by the lagoon after her exhausting day.

I'm Three!!

We had the perfect day for a birthday party at the park! Sarae really loves blowing bubbles and she and Tia found these bubble wands a couple of weeks ago. We bought one for each child that came to the party and they were a hit. Everyone was so good at using the wands, there were bubbles all over the place. Sarae wanted a princess theme for her party and so I decided to make her a castle cake. I took the day off from work to make it and worked on it off and on from 10:00 a.m. til 11:30 p.m. The picture shows you what it looked like at the house. As we were driving over to the park, I could hear the towers falling as we rounded a corner or came to a stop. By the time we got there, there were only 4 towers standing. Thanks to Uncle Jimmy for grilling all of the food for the party!! Thanks to everyone who came to the party! Sarae reports that she had a fun time with her friends at the party and is ready to do it again! : )

Happy Chinese New Year!

We've been so busy, I haven't updated the blog since 2009! Sarae and I celebrated Chinese New Year with our adoption facilitator and other families who adopted. Sarae is growing up so quickly. She is still talking up a storm and is very into the Disney Princess'. Sarae and I both cut our hair short recently. Neither of us wanted to deal with having to put it up in the morning! We hope everyone has had a wonderful new year so far!