Busy, busy!

What a busy week I have had since my last post!

It started off with a family photo shoot at a studio. Boy... this is not an activity for the faint at heart! It is not easy to get a picture of a one year old that all she wants to do is walk around. God bless that photographer! Here are some of the photos that were taken. Do you know how hard it is to choose out of over 100 shots? I have purposely omitted the photo that will be used for our Christmas card. You will have to wait and see!

Next came scrapbooking. I finally started cutting up those pictures and using all the scrapbooking goodies I have been saving for the last four years. What a weight off my shoulders even though I only have three pages done. I am on my way! Thanks to my new friend Red for coming over and holding my hand while I cut parts of my daughter's hands and feet off (in the pictures of course!).

Next on the agenda was the preparation for a bridal shower that I was part-organizing. I was in charge of purchasing and wrapping the group gifts. And I decided to make the bride-to-be a wedding cake. Yes, this cake is make of towels... lots of them tightly rolled. It turned out well, I must say.

Friday was spent at work and shopping so I left early morning and did not get back until late night.

Then on Saturday, I spent half the day going to the mall to pick up the photos only to realize that I had forgotten my gift certicate at home (for the second time) therefore had to go back home to fetch it. All this with 2 children, seeing that my darling husband left ever so early that morning for a week in St. Louis.

And then, Sunday was the said bridal shower at which I spent most of the day at. Lots of fun was had by all. Geez... I wish I was getting married all over again. The gifts the bride-to-be were fab!

Today, I thought I would relax but alas I had to actually work from home as stuff needed to be ordered for the store... Christmas is around the corner after all!

And tomorrow after I drop Cara-Li off at school, Alexia and I are off to work for a couple of hours as I must finalize my ordering and cannot do so from the comforts of home. And I musn't forget to pick-up my Christmas cards from Costco. I am ever so anxious to see the final product!

OK... gotta go!

A New Look

Well... here it is. A new look for my blog! Isn't it great, lively and cheerful? Yeah, well... I had nothing to do with it.

All this was done by Danielle who was fabulous and efficient to work with. I did not know that Blog Designers existed until I stubbled upon her site last week and within a few days, a new, fresh look graces my blog pages!

I hope you enjoy it!

At the Cottage

Well... we headed off to the cottage again this weekend for a final raking of leaves, bringing in firewood, hooking up the heated water line, taking in the BBQ and hanging the exterior Christmas lights. In fact, I had no part of this... Gord was out there with the help of our beloved Auntie Loula who is always ready to lend a helping hand as she trying to keep her bedroom at the cottage!

It was cold out there and I was stuck indoors with the children with a beautiful fire to keep us warm just hanging out. Poor me! I had to slave over a hot stove to make sure that the workers were fed. Heehee! I did, however, decorate the cottage for Christmas... now all we need to do is cut down a tree and set it up a few days before Christmas.

Poor Alexia had to wear sunglasses at breakfast on Sunday as it was just so sunny in our dining room!

A well-deserved snooze on the couch for Daddy and Cara-Li after a hard day's work!

Playdates

Alexia had her first baby playdate (as Cara-Li called it) today with Yummy and they had a blast. So did the mommies!


Yummy has been home less than a month and she is also from the province of Jiangxi. Yummy's mommy was nice enough to have picked up a silk Chinese dress for Cara-Li (I got the wrong size) and a Beijing Olympic cap for my dear husband who has cap issues (he could not decide which to buy and therefore did not buy one. This was my fault of course as I did not help with the decision). He was, however, extremely pleased with the one selected by Yummy's mommy! Now everyone is happy except for Cara-Li who did not have a playdate today. Oh well...

We are off to the cottage tomorrow for the pre-Christmas preparations. Windows will be sealed, wood will be brought in, leaves will be raked and Christmas decorations will be hung. All we will need to do just a few days before Christmas is to chop down a Charlie Brown tree and decorate it.

I hear that snow is on its way.....

She's in!

My big girl, Cara-Li, is in! She had her first interview today at a private school and she was accepted. Well, interview... if that is what you would call it. 90 year old woman asking 5 year old girl questions to which 5 year old would not answer. But she is still in :) She will be starting 1st grade next September at the big school in downtown Montreal and she will be taking the school bus.

My gosh... what have we gotten ourselves into?

Grubs on!

How am I supposed to make dinner with these two lying smack in the middle of the kitchen?

Saving a life

A blogger friend of mine blogged about comments that strangers make in the supermarket etc. Over the years I have heard all sorts of comments such as:

She is beautiful!
Congratulations!
How much did she cost?
She is so lucky.
You saved a life.

The first 2 comments make you smile and say thank you and want to strike up a conversation with them. The next comment is just too much! You don't want to get too confrontational so you half-smile and walk in the opposite direction. The next 2 comments... well... they had me thinking. Yes, she is lucky now because she has a mommy and daddy that love her so much. Yes, we might have saved a life... she is much better off living in a different country with a new family than in an orphanage her entire life (although, I am sure someone else would have saved her). But, after many years of complete turmoil of trying to have a child... 2 ectopic pregnancies followed by numerous surgeries to repair what was not working right and then followed by several years of infertility treatments... weeks and weeks of injections and running to the hospital every minute to check this and check that, cycle after cycle, month after month, year after year... A person does get to be a little more bitter and little more negative after each failed attempt. I would say that my girls, my beautiful daughters from China, saved me... I AM the lucky one!

Bringing me to Tears

Anyone who knows me knows that when it comes to my children and anything to do with adoption, I can be brought to tears instantly. Talk to me about birth parents, finding locations, time spent at the orphanage etc and I will turn into a big slobbering bowl of mush.

Which brings me to my story...

I spent part of this week cleaning out the office closet. In the last 6 months, any paperwork (adoption, bills etc.) have been pitched into a huge heap in the closet. No filing, no organizing, no nothing. Anything purchased such as cables for electronic equipment or external hard drives have literally been pitched in there most of them in their unopened original packaging (it seemed really urgent at the time to have all this stuff!). Now that we are back from China and somewhat settled, I have decided to tackle the said closet. A quick visit to Staples to pick up some organisational supplies and I was armed and ready. Cara-Li has been watching me organise papers and cards for each of them in their own box nicely filed and labeled (with the new label machine!). In this closet is where we keep all our adoption paperwork most of which always lives in the briefcase that was given to us by our agency. I finally made each of the briefcases a nice and pretty label in order to identify them and so that I can stop pulling out the wrong one. Cara-Li finally poked her head and started questioning what were in the briefcases. She knows that Alexia's contains all the paperwork necessary to bring her home. Cara-Li says to me, '' Mommy, in my briefcase, is it all about me and when I lived at the orphanage in China?'' OMG! She used the word orphanage! It was the first time that I had ever heard her say this to me. We always talk about her life in China before us but I guess it was hard for me to hear it from her in her own words. I had to excuse myself as I did not want her to see me crying. As I am walking away, I heard her asking, ''Mommy, are you crying again?'' What a smart cookie!

Laundry!

I don't know... it seems to me that all I do around here is laundry, laundry, laundry!!

I understand that we have an extra person now living in this house and she is a baby therefore lots more laundry to be had. But this is ridiculous!

Hufff... I am off to do yet another load.... the last for the day.

Oooops... this is not a load that I can do in the washing machine. This load goes in the tub!

Daddy's Birthday!

It was Gord's birthday yesterday and due to lots of stuff going on around here, not much was celebrated. We did, however, have a wonderful dinner, surf and turf, here at home. And as Cara-Li and I did not have time to bake a cake due to a playdate, we reused a piece of cake from our weekend's dinner party. Sorry Daddy! And to boot, as I did not have time to shop, my darling received a fog machine that my friend picked up and delivered for me (thanks MC) from Canadian Tire at a post-Halloween sale (1/2 off!). Just what he always wanted... yeah, right!

2 months already!

It was our 2 month anniversary of Gotcha Day yesterday (I don't know what happened to yesterday's post... it disappeared!). Lots has changed in our lives and Alexia's too since that beautiful day in Nanchang. Alexia has flourished into a beautiful, happy baby. She now has 3 little teeth and can walk on her own. She smiles all the time and is the world's best sleeper! How long will this honeymoon last? Heehee! We have grown froma family of 3 to a family of 4. It took some doing and adjustments for all of us but now we are like a very well-oiled machine. We cannot even begin to imagine life without our little Xia Xia!

Then

Now

She's on the go!

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