Dance Recital 2011.......

Jocelyn had her first dance recital on June 25th and June 26 and she had a blast and did a terrific job.  She is in "Tumble Tykes" and they range in age from 3 to 5.  She loved being on stage and said she wants to do it again next year.  Here is her costume, she was going to a slumber party with her friends for her routine.

 Here is her whole costume, isn't she just adorable?

 I don't wear makeup so I had another dancers mother put it on.  Jocelyn didn't like that at all as you can tell by her expression....

She loved to twirl in her costume and make the shirt flare out so she had to show me when I was taking a picture.

 Her tumbling classes resume on August 3rd and she is already wanting to go back so we will have pictures of Dance Recital 2012 in about a year, stay tuned......

We love Melroe's School of Dance !!!!

Vacation Bible School 2011....

Here she is at snacks, we made "wacky tourist's". Basically a pudding cup that we used candy, sprinkles, etc to make a face in the pudding. I was a helper in snacks this year and boy was it very busy but a lot of fun. The story was about a centurian so they made "armor" with paper sacks.

Here she is in the worship rally at the beginning of VBS every evening. Our theme was the Big Apple so wasn't the shirt that her Aunt Betty and Uncle Phil bought her in New York just perfect?

This is the picture that I took the first night of VBS, after all it was her first VBS and I had to have pictures...

She had a blast and really enjoyed VBS. This will definitely be a yearly tradition. So glad she was able to attend. We had an average of 75 kids each night and up to 83 on our highest night. Praise the Lord !!!

Princess Jocelyn....

She wanted to be Belle from Beauty and the Beast for Halloween last year. She loves the Disney princesses. Do you know which one is her favorite??? I will give you a hint, look at the picture below. We went over to our friend TJ's house and went trick or treating after eating sloppy joes and chips. Of course the costume was put on after we got done eating.


I added the yellow shirt just before we left as it was getting pretty cold outside.

I love her smile in the picture below, she looks so grown up. What happened to the baby girl I brought home?

I think that she makes a beautiful princess, don't you???

A New Year and a New Years Resolution....

This picture is from Christmas of 2010. She loved her Veggie Tale Castle, thank you Aunt Betty and Uncle Phil.

One of my many New Year's Resolutions is to post once at least once a week on this blog and I will be posting on Sunday evenings.

Jocelyn has really changed since my last post.

In August she started a tumbling class on Wednesday nights and absolutely LOVES it. She will have her first recital in late June. Incidentally we have met another family who adopted a little girl from China through her tumbling class. Their gotha day is June of 2009. Isn't it a small world?

Jocelyn loves the Disney Princesses and can name all of them. She has pajamas with all of the Princesses and they are the only pajamas she asks to wear. She keeps telling me that she is Princess Jocelyn. What an imagination.

My mom now watches Jocelyn 4 days a week and she goes to an in home day care once a week, that way my mom gets a break and Jocelyn gets some social interaction with other children.

See you next week

3 year photo shoot.....

I took Jocelyn to Portrait Innovations to have her 3 year pictures taken, as you can see below they do a fantastic job!! I didn't plan well and made the photo shoot for 1:00 in the afternoon (right during her nap time). My 40 year old brain is deteriorating quickly!! She was a live wire not wanting to stay still at all. That just shows you how good they are that the pictures turned out so well!!
Even this picture (I hate having my picture taken) I was really pleased with.

I had to have one in her Chinese New Year outfit. I just loved this picture.

I am just the most behaved little girl. Don't let that grin fool you guys!!

I am going to have all of her pictures done there as I have been very pleased each and every time

P.S. Jocelyn is coming down with a whopper of a cold so please pray for healing and patience for me as I deal with a cranky little girl!!

Jocelyn's 3rd Birthday party....

Jocelyn's 3rd birthday was April 10 and we had a party at our church. Here Jocelyn and her friends Jaelyn and Celeste are playing ring around the rosie. One of Jocelyn's games. The adults are having fun watching them play.

Here Jocelyn is tasting her birthday cake. It was delicious by the way.

I can't believe that she is 3 already, it was just yesterday that I was in China picking her up wasn't it???

Wasn't the cake so cute???

Two peas in a pod, they played with the balloons for at least 30 minutes. Cheap entertainment don't you think?

Fun was had by all especially the birthday girl. She loved her Happy burtday pahty. Mommy did too!!!

Jocelyn has gone through many changes since I last posted!! She can now count to 15, recognize all of her letters and sing the abc song. The biggest change is how much her vocabulary has grown. She is growing up so fast!!!

Chinese New Year.....

February 14th was Chinese New Year (Year of the Tiger). A good friend of mine Krista found this outfit for Jocelyn at the store where she works.

After church we went to a local Chinese restaurant called North China Dragon and had wonderful Cashew Chicken and Moo Shu Pork and eggrolls.

Her cheesy grin...

Here we are at home before we left to go to church. She is letting me take many more pictures where she is smiling.

I wanted a picture where the whole outfit could be seen. Isn't she CUTE???

I can't believe how fast she is growing up! Just yesterday as I was getting ready to go to work she said "Hugs and tisses, mommy, hugs and tisses" After I gave her her hugs and tisses she then said "Dood day" (good day). Her vocabulary has grown so much in the last few months.

I can see that my daughter is going to keep me on my toes from now on and how I am going to have to watch everything that comes out of my mouth because it may then come out of hers!!

Happy Referral-versary to me....

2 years ago at 3:45 in the afternoon I got the call that I had a daughter waiting for me in China. I had waited for so long for that call that it seemed like a dream. She had many people wanting to meet her in the United States and I would have a picture of her in my hand in less than 24 hours. I had become and achieved one of my most precious dreams. I was a mommy.

I am sorry that I haven't posted in awhile. My only excuse is that I have become addicted with facebook, especially farmville. I am working hard to overcome (or at least tone down) this addiction.

These pictures are from Christmas morning 2009

Here she is talking to "Ant Beddy" on her new cell phone.

Here she is taking pictures of mommy with her new cell phone.

Here she is using her cell phone for the first time. Are we sensing a theme here?

Jocelyn had more fun ripping the paper off her gift than what was inside. She "hepped" mommy and grandma open presents too.

Oh, boy a Veggie Tales Video. I love the Veggie Tales!!


I will try to do better at posting more and farming less. Hope everyone has a good week and pray for my travel to China sister Jennifer Johnson. Her father had triple bypass surgery today and is doing well. Pray for a speedy recovery and for strength for her family.

Sorry about the pictures. I got a new computer and haven't quite worked out all of the kinks yet.

Christmas Picture 2009...

I took Jocelyn to a local portrait studio called "Portrait Innovations" on 12/05/09 to have her Christmas picture done. I had a hard time choosing one but decided on the one below. I just love it!!!!!!

Christmas cards were mailed Saturday, all but two of the presents are wrapped. We are going to put up the tree tomorrow. I am the queen of procrastination (otherwise the tree would already be up). I can't believe that I am going to be celebrating my 2nd Christmas as a mommy. I waited such a long time to become one and the time seems to be flying by. I am cherishing every minute of motherhood (well maybe not EVERY minute) but I wouldn't trade it for the world. To all of you out there waiting for your own China doll, keep the faith that you will soon be celebrating Christmas with your own daughter.

Doing Mission work...

This past Sunday at church some of the congregation stayed after to decorate the church for Christmas. Jocelyn and I stayed after to help get the food sorted and lined up for our Deacon Baskets (these are baskets of food that we deliver to families that need help). We have done this every year and I decided that Jocelyn needed to start helping with missions that we do as a church as I want her to have a giving heart and to also see how lucky she is. Here she is loading up food in her "shopping cart" to take to the fellowship hall.
Here we are on our way to the fellowship hall with our cart full.

We had to make many trips as we had lots of donations.

Here she is unloading her cart and helping Aunt Betty putting like foods together.

As I said earlier we made MANY trips.

Jocelyn was EXHAUSTED when we were finished and the minute I put her in her carseat she was out like a light and she took a 2 and a half hour nap when we got home. I am so proud of our church and so proud of Jocelyn as she is beginning her mission work.

The leaves have fallen......

A few days before Halloween (as you can tell by the decorations in the background) when we pulled into our driveway the neighbor across the street had raked up all of his leaves in his front yard and had them in a huge pile. His daughter was jumping in them and having a good time. Jocelyn said "eeves, mommy Jocen pay". How could you pass up such a cute request? I couldn't of course. We went across the street and asked if we could play and he said sure. Jocelyn had a blast as you can tell by her smile.

Unfortunately we couldn't play very long as it was pretty chilly outside.

I am queen of leaves!!!

She wasn't so sure what to think of mommy throwing her in the leaves. She wamed up to that quickly though.

Here she is just after mommy threw her in the leaves trying to get back up.

We had a blast and I think that I had more fun than she did. I don't think that I have ever laughed as much as I did just seeing her have fun and her precious smile many, many times

Mommy's Little Pirate.....

For Halloween Jocelyn dressed up as a pirate. We went over to our friend TJ's house. We had mummy dogs (really hot dogs wrapped in pastry dough) Turkey pot pie, and fruit salad in oranges that had Jack-o-lantern faces. We had a really good time.

I had to get one without her mouth open.

After we were done trick-or-treating. We came back to the house and decorated pumpkin shaped cookies. Here is Jocelyn's masterpiece pumpkin.

I hope everyone had a Happy and safe Halloween.

Playtime.....

Jocelyn and mommy being silly. Now don't forget to say cheez.

These pictures were taken last Sunday after we got home from church. Jocelyn and I decided to have some fun. We had a tea party, then we made some dinner, and then she decided it was time for her dolly to go night-night. So she decided to read her a bedtime story. I thought this was sweet so I had to go and get the camera.

Let's see what happens next in the story.

I could of course understand just a few words and most of the story was about trees, dogs, and night-night.

She is telling our dog Nutmeg to "go way baby seeping"

After we put dolly night-night Jocelyn and I went outside to have some fun. She is having fun watching mommy fall down on the ground and roll in the leaves. What fun, I get a second childhood!! I got Jocelyn the vaccination for the swine flu on Wednesday. She woke up on Thursday with a fever of 103.5. The nurse said she might run a fever for a couple of days to possibly a week. My mom stayed home with her on Thursday. She was still running a fever on Friday morning but it broke Friday night. Praise God. I had a pretty cranky girl on my hands those two days but I would be cranky too if I had a 103 degree temp. She really has become herself again and is ready to play, play, and play. I am so glad but exhausted at the same time.