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Friday, January 6, 2006Happy New Year! We spent our New Year's Eve at my sister's house in Atlanta this year recovering from a nasty stomach bug. Thankfully Isabelle only caught a cold while we were away, and not the stomach virus that landed the rest of us on our back (or over the toilet) for at least a day or two. Christmas day was wonderful though. The kids had such fun opening presents together and it was magical to experience Christmas through their eyes. Isabelle was quite overwhelmed with everything and only opened a few of her presents to avoid a complete meltdown in the middle of it all. One of her favorites was a microphone that plays music and also records your voice and plays it back. She figured out quickly how to make it play a song and then hold it up to her mouth and 'sing'. She also enjoyed a musical set which included a drum and a harmonica. On her report from the orphanage it stated that she liked musical toys and they sure were right. What she enjoyed the most was her cousin's kitchen set, which included play dishes and pretend food. I definitely see a little kitchen in her future. One of the sweetest moments of our time there was when I walked in on a conversation between my 4 year old, Dalton, and his cousin Avery, 5. They were arguing over who 'had Isabelle in their heart first'. Dalton was telling Avery that Isabelle was HIS sister and Avery countered that Isabelle was still part of HER family. It was a reminder of how extraordinary the gift of adoption is.

Isabelle is still quite the little busy body. She has discovered how to pull herself up onto the kitchen table by first climbing up into a chair. The other day I found her standing on the table as if she were in the middle of a stage. I think she likes the limelight. She is enjoying mealtimes more and will try to get up into her highchair to let me know she's ready to eat. Her favorite is anything she can eat with a fork. I don't know why I hadn't given her a fork before but just thought of it the other day. She picked it up and used it amazingly well. Now she eats twice as much because she loves using her fork so much. She has also learned to point at anything she wants. And it's impossible to resist no matter how badly I want to try to encourage her language development. She's fascinated by pictures and our nightly ritual includes walking down the hall and pointing to and kissing each family member's picture. At church a few weeks ago she started to get very restless in the service. Tori offered to take her out to the children's area so I could listen to the sermon. When church was over Tori told me that Isabelle had asked several times for 'Mama'! Even though I didn't hear it, I'll take it...it's something! Since then she had been heard to say it several times, but if we ask her to say it again, she looks at us like we're lunatics. She will say 'thank you' but it is in Isabelle-speak and if she didn't say it just at the time that I give her something, I wouldn't know what it was she was trying to say. She has her own language she babbles in while she's playing or when she's trying to join in the conversation. It's so cute to listen to, I don't know if it resembles Chinese or English more, but none of us can decipher any of it.

Right now we're anxiously anticipating Isabelle's open heart surgery scheduled for January 12. She does have a slight cold right now and we are unsure if this will cause the surgery to be delayed or not. We are prayerful that it will be able to take place as we have already worked out our schedules to allow us to be with her and the other children and not have to worry about Chris' work or other commitments. And as anxiety inducing as the last few weeks have been waiting for the surgery date, we don't want to go through all of this again. We have been told that she will stay in ICU for about 24-48 hours and then will move to a regular room for the rest of her stay. Dr. Chen explained that having the surgery at this age is advantageous since she is so busy and curious, she will recover very quickly and be up and at 'em in just a matter of days. Please keep her in your prayers over the next few weeks, that she would tolerate the surgery well and that her recovery would be fast and uneventful. We'll update everyone as soon as we have some news. The littlest elf

Going to a Christmas party

Christmas party continued

After bath and all smiles

First snow of the winter

Favorite Christmas present

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