Holly's First TV Appearance

Check out KXLY Sports Extra , Bronco fans! Fast forward to 10:45 on the video to see Holly's television debut. So cute, even for just a couple of seconds.

Time Sure Flies By!

I meant to blog last weekend and the weekend before that. All the sudden, its the last weekend of the month! So here is my marathon blog post. Many people have asked how Holly and Van are getting along. Van loves Holly and Holly loves Van! I can already see that it is going to be very hard for Holly next June when Van goes back to Vietnam. Here they are playing on the couch one evening.

During Homecoming week, we had a chili feed, skits from each class, and a bonfire above the football field afterward. This is Holly with her "best friend" Elissa. They don't know that they are best friends and only see each other occasionally, but they will be in the same grade when they go to school, so Elissa's dad (who I work with) and I have decided that they might as well be best friends. As you can see, Elissa already wants to hug Holly every time they see each other! Holly is paying attention to the big kids, of course.
Last weekend we met my parents in Spokane for the Moon Festival put on by the Spokane Chinese Association. It was pretty interesting and there were a lot of different entertainment acts in Chinese. We all tried moon cake for the first time. Here is Holly's first bite of moon cake. Do you think she liked it?
Check out the following picture for the answer! She pretty much ate everyone's moon cake!
Holly wasn't as impressed with the entertainment as the rest of us were. It didn't help that we had been shopping all morning and she didn't ever really get a nap until then.
Afterward, we went to a nearby Chinese restaurant for an early dinner before heading home. My mom took this picture of Van and I while we were waiting for our food.

Here's one of Holly and her PopPop. She had waken up refreshed from her nap, as you can see.
She charmed and entertained us all until our food got there. Then she got serious and ate. Don't mess with this girl's food or try to feed her! She will do it herself!
I've lost track of what evening this picture was taken, but it sure shows what Holly's evenings are like after a bath. Hang out in her chair with binkie, bunny, and her bottle for a little bit before going in to read and go night-night.
Nothing else truly exciting or noteworthy has taken place lately, but we are looking forward to October so we can pick apples, go on a hayride, carve pumpkins, and trick or treat!

What an honor and great friends, too.

So my awesome blog-world friend (who I wish I could hang out with in person) nominated me for a cyberspace award. I'm a little sketchy about what all I'm supposed to do about it, but I do know I need to copy and paste some info into this post. I think I'm supposed to create a logo or something, but I don't know how to do that! So, I copied and pasted T's from her blog. Hope that is ok, T! Love ya tons and thanks so much for thinking of me. What a surprise! And it does put a smile on your face!

The award is called the Smile Award. Here are the rules & characteristics for those honored by this prestigious award:

1. The recipient must link back the the award's creator.

2. You must post these rules if you receive the award.

3. You must choose 5 people to receive the award after receiving it yourself.

4. You must fit the characteristics of the recipient of the award, as posted by Mere.

5. You must post the characteristics of a recipient.

6. You must create a post sharing your win with others.

7. You must thank your giver.

Characteristics for the Smile Award:

1. Must display a cheerful attitude.

2. Must love one another.
3. Must make mistakes.
4. Must learn from others.
5. Must be a positive contributor to blog world.
6. Must love life.
7. Must love kids.

I would like to nominate the following 5 people for the Smile Award (in no particular order):

Anne Marie - who is always helpful, joyful for others' opportunities and blessings, and could single-handedly be a darned good reason to move to Chicago!

Bethany - whose love and caring for others truly comes out in her blog each time she posts. Its not the frequency that counts, its the passion for life and the spirit in which it is done. Via her blog, she showed me how to embrace the Taiwanese culture before I ever stepped foot in the country.

Jeff - who probably doesn't know how inspirational he is. Not only do I enjoy reading his blog for general purposes, he is someone I look up to as a parent and am impressed as heck with as a husband! Abbey sure got a good one there!

Jen - who just might be my long lost twin in so many ways. She is so caring and conscious of her parenting choices and really does everything she can to make each and every day special for her family.

Kristie - who always puts family first, and doesn't give herself nearly the amount of credit she should!

I know this post is out of the ordinary for my blog, but it means so much to me to be thought of as someone special by T, who I have never had the pleasure of meeting in person. Also, the above mentioned names are people I consider true friends and well worth sharing with the world.

Welcome Van!

Van arrived on Thursday afternoon. She landed in Spokane about 4:05 pm and was picked up by the area coordinator because I didn't have time to get to the airport after work. She arrived here about 6:15 and was very tired. We visited for a while and then she went to sleep. As many of you know, it is a long flight and jet lag is no fun.

Friday morning, I took Van to school and showed her around. The we registered her for classes and she began her American school experience! Getting adjusted to a new culture, home, and school all at once is very difficult but she is doing well. Fortunately, she only had one day of school and then has the weekend to relax and get her bearings.

Saturday, we went to an exchange student/host family potluck and orientation meeting. Van met several other students from Vietnam who had been here a couple of weeks already. They told her that it just takes a little time to adjust. She made other friends there and got some email addresses, as well. We also have two other exchange students in our school, so that is helpful. Here is our first family photo at the picnic. Van and Holly have hit it off well! Holly smiles a lot at her, plays with Van, and goes into her room if the door isn't shut. Holly also ran right over to Van several times during the picnic and sits in her lap. Here they are together on the swing.
I was surprised at how many exchange students there are in our region. With all of them spread out among different towns, it is hard to gauge how many there are until they are all together in one place. Many of them started making new friendships at the picnic and will probably get to do a number of activities together throughout the year. Here is a group picture of some of the exchange students. Van is in the center shading her eyes from the sun. These pictures were funny to take because many host families were taking pictures and none of the students really knew where they should be looking, so everyone is doing something different.

The girl on the far left, Nikki, is from Taiwan and was very excited about Holly being adopted from there. She asked if Holly would learn Chinese later and I told her yes. Holly also met a 4 year old little girl who was adopted from China and whose family is hosting an exchange student this year. When we do these types of gatherings throughout the year, Holly will have a playmate, too!
As usual, Holly enjoyed the food very much! She particularly like the cupcakes and peach cobbler.
I have been wondering what Holly is going to be for Halloween since it is coming up shortly and I have to make a decision. A couple days later, a catalog showed up in the mail with three pages of costumes. I would look at one and think "Oh, that's so cute! Holly would look great in that." Then I would see another and another and another. Obviously, no decision has been made because it is so hard to decide! I've got to do it soon so I can get something ordered and don't have to try to go shopping for one. Here is Holly sitting on the couch with the catalog after we looked through it together.Now that school has started, we are trying to get back into the swing of things and a more solid routine. Although afternoon nap time is not going well, I must say! The tired girl just wants to stay up and not take a nap until late in the day. I've got to figure out some way to fix that because I want to see her when I get home, not have her asleep still!

A Relaxing Labor Day Weekend

Friday after I got done with work, Holly and I jumped in the car and headed up to Nana & PopPop's house for the weekend. Holly had a lot of catching up to do with Nana and told her all kinds of things that she had been doing since the last time they saw each other.
Then Holly decided that she and Nana needed to see what was going on in the yard. I don't know exactly what is happening here, but it sure looks like it was interesting to both of them.

Saturday morning, Holly woke up all smiles...but way too early! We stayed in the bedroom as long as possible before getting up. She made a bee line of Nana & PopPop's bedroom to wake them up. She played on the bed with them and Maddie for a long while before we moved on to something else for the day.
We did a little shopping on Saturday. I needed to get a few things for the extra bedroom in preparation for our foreign exchange student. Her name is Van and she is from Vietnam. I was hoping that I would have a message on the answering machine when I got home tonight telling me her flight information or something. Maybe tomorrow!

After a hard day of shopping and playing, we had a delicious dinner. I carefully cut corn off the cob for Holly, but she wanted nothing to do with that. Instead, she had her first corn on the cob and ate the entire thing! When I was a little kid, my grandmother had a turtle that wound up and when you pressed its head or its tail, it would ring until it was all the way wound down. As kids, we only got to have the turtle when we were sick. It was placed by our bedside so that we could press the head and someone would come help us with whatever it was we needed. As a kid, this was a special treat to have the turtle. As an adult, I can see that it was a sanity saver, not the special treat that we thought it was! Well, the turtle was sitting on the bookshelf at Nana's house and I happened to notice it this weekend. I showed Holly how to press its head or tail to make it work. Of course, this was great fun, but Nana wasn't thinking it was as much fun as Holly did! I guess we will have to make it the special treat for when Holly is in bed sick.
Sunday after church, we went to eat at the golf course diner, which is also the home of the Elks Club in town. While we were waiting for a table, Holly got her first introduction to an elk, although it was stuffed and mounted, she still had her doubts. It wasn't until Nana showed her that they could "beep" the elk's nose, just like Holly does with everyone else's noses that the elk became ok. Here she is reaching up to beep his nose. We had to walk down the hall several times during our meal to see the elk and beep his nose, and once on the way out. Elk is one more word that Holly has added to her vocabulary. Strange, I know...
Last week when we were out for our evening walk, we stopped to visit some friends. Holly got to play with Lance while the grownups visited. As we were visiting, it dawned on me that Holly was having a GREAT time with all of Lance's toys. I realized that they were all big kid toys (He's 2 1/2) and that most of what she had at home were little kid toys. This is an obviously lacking area in my parenting skills because I hadn't even noticed!

On the way home from our weekend, we stopped and bought a few big kid toys that Holly was happy to help pick out. She chose a couple of brown "neighs" (aka horses) and spent this evening giving them kisses. I tried over and over to get a picture of her giving one of them a little smackeroo, but my timing isn't quick enough, I guess! She also got a new little people barn. This is great because she already has a little people bus and little people Noah's Ark, so the little people collection just keeps growing. Just for the record, Holly has an obsession with farm animals and animal sounds. She knows pigs, cows, horses, sheep, ducks, frogs, dogs, cats, etc, etc, etc. She always picks a farm/animal book to read, likes to play with her see and say, and sings Old McDonald about a zillion times a day. Hence, the barn!
One of Holly's favorite things over at Lance's was that he had so many different kinds of balls; golf balls, footballs, basketballs, bouncy balls. Holly has just two or three, so we bought a nurf football and a foam yellow ball. She really wanted to play ball with the cat, but Salem was having none of that! At least Holly stopped long enough for me to snap a picture, though.
After playing with all these new toys, Holly had to take a little siesta while Mama was fixing dinner. She grabbed the quilt that Nana made her and plopped right down on the kitchen floor.
When I saw this picture on the camera, I realized how grown up Holly is getting. She is so tall and says so many different words that I can hardly keep up. Of course, I love every second of it, but I also miss the little tiny baby she was when I brought her home. My frame of reference for her growth is this: When I brought her home, I bought size 3 diapers for her and she barely fit into them. She was just under 16 pounds, and the tabs on the diapers overlapped when I put one on her. I know she is still a petite little thing, but I bought size 4 diapers for the first time TODAY! She almost literally grew out of them in the last week! (I know some of you are laughing, since your boys were in size 4 when they came home at 6-7 months!) Even some of her 12 month jeans are getting too short already. Her 18 month checkup is next month, so I will be interested to see how much she weighs then.
Holly is such a joy each and every day. Growing up is both exciting and sad. I love all the new things she does and mostly like the independence she has. I'm still trying to figure out where to get Holly a little sister from; just waiting for a country to call to my heart the way that Taiwan did!

When we get any new news about Van and when she will be here, I will let you all know. I am excited for this opportunity and think it will be a great year for us all.