Double Happiness

Oh Christmas Tree!

Family FotoFun Friday Challenge #8 
Post your pictures on your blog and leave a comment here before 12/8/06.  EXTENDED ANOTHER WEEK!

This week's photo challenge is "Christmas Tree Photos".  I know it's a month before Christmas but I'm already starting to see Christmas trees on the blogs and I know there will be many more after this long holiday weekend.  Some of our friends don't observe Christmas but we do so this is our theme this week.  If you don't have a Christmas Tree photo for 2006 yet, post one from an earlier year -- even your own childhood!

(1) Maddy's not smiling but I think she's so beautiful in this picture. When you have two kids to photograph, it's hard to find one photo that is perfect of both of them but I really love this one even though Maddy's not smiling. (2) The fireplace looks so big with our two little ones standing in front! When they're all dressed up on Christmas day, We'll have them stand on the hearth and we'll take their picture. This is our first Christmas in our new house and since we plan to live here forever, it'll be fun to see how much the girls grow and change as they stand on the hearth and have their picture taken year after year.

(3) Maddy deep in thought as she contemplates the perfect placement of her pretty green ornament.  I love the way she holds items in her hands like they're precious and can't be dropped (look at her holding this apple).  She's our "intense" one.   

(4) Maddy smiles!

(5) Gwen's hands.

This week, Gwen turns 29 months old.  She weighs 28 pounds.
This week, Maddy turns 28 months old.  She weighs 22.5 pounds.

This week's FFFF participants:

Just Keep Swimming Loving Lydia Davis Days Cannon Fishbowl My Chinese Dream The Kid and I The Dragonfly Diaries From Here To There... Mei Mei Journal My Cup Runneth Over Cross Family Website Hiking Through Life... Wee Sit Baby A Place To Call Home Chou Chou Shu (Stinky Mouse)

The Smith Family's Adventures Much Ado China Princess Chew Family Website Waiting for Bella One Two Grow Jeff's Place Mikala Yin Born in Our Hearts Life With Dallas Eliza's Story Two "Twin" Terrors Table for Five Zizoo Sarah's Adventures Season Star

Vivi Claire and Bella Jane Bringing Home Baby (Two in Blue) Katie Comes Home Mission To Macie The Cady Chase

Happy Thanksgiving!

The turkey is in the oven (next to Michael's Tofurky) and the kids are napping.  I'll upload pictures of our feast later.  Until then, enjoy a couple of other pictures.  :)

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OOPS!  We posed for the picture and only remembered after we ate everything that we'd laid out all of the food on the counter and just carried our plates to the table.  Naturally, that made for a pretty unexciting Thanksgiving Dinner photo!  So, I did the best I could to improvise!

Autumn

Family FotoFun Friday Challenge #7 
Post your pictures on your blog and leave a comment here before 11/24/06.

This week's FFFF challenge is Autumn.   

I love Autumn.  I love the yellow and orange and red leaves and the way they crunch under my feet when we take our afternoon walk.  I love the cool long nights and warm wool sweaters.  I especially love the way the air smells when everyone has a log burning in their fireplace.  Autumn is my favorite season! We have some wonderful walking paths around here and the girls are finally old enough to get out of the stroller and walk along with us as we take our daily stroll.    It takes hours just to go a mile or so since they want to stop and pick up leaves and sticks and rocks.  They have to touch everything!  In the picture on the left, they're racing to the water puddle up ahead!

The poem I quoted in the picture was written by Helen Keller when she was only 13 years old.  I remember reading a book about her when I was 6 years old (I still have the book) and it seems I've admired her my whole life.  You can read the poem in its entirety here:  <click>

Blind and deaf since age 18 months, HK learned to speak by observing the way "sounds" felt on her teacher's throat.   Can you imagine that?  Her first word was "water".  She grew up to do many amazing things. 

We're having some speech issues in our house too.  Gwen is 28 months old and has been with us for 14 months now but her language skills are not quite where we think they should be.  In many ways, Maddy (one month younger and home only 2 months) is grasping spoken English more easily than Gwen.  We're looking into speech therapy to help her communicate a little bit better.  She's such a easy-going little girl but I can tell that she really would like to be able to be understood more often.  She does try to speak but she sounds like she has a mouth full of marbles.   Lots of our friends in the adoption community have used speech therapy for their for their children and the benefits have been remarkable.  We hope it helps our sweet babies too! (Maddy will also very likely need it since she was over 2 when adopted).

Some people have commented that they can't participate in our FFFF challenge this week because they don't live in a place that has colorful trees.   My picture wasn't the colorful spectacle of Autumn that I wanted it to be so I morphed two photos together to get the one I wanted (using FotoFusion by Lumapix). Truth is, we *do* have gorgeous Fall colors here.  I just didn't have my camera and my kids all together in the right place to capture it.  So I did it on the computer and I think that's just as good! 

I love having an excuse to be creative and I hope these FFFF challenges can really challenge some of you too!

This week's FFFF participants:

From Here to There... My Cup Runneth Over For the Love of Libby The Smith Family's Adventures Bicycle Built for Three Red Thread to Katelyn Just Keep Swimming Chou Chou Shu (Stinky Mouse) Mei Mei Journal Mikala Yin Born in Our Hearts The Life & Times of Chloe & Pearl

Family FotoFun Friday Challenge #7 
Post your pictures on your blog and leave a comment here before 11/24/06.

This week's FFFF challenge is Autumn.   

I love Autumn.  I love the yellow and orange and red leaves and the way they crunch under my feet when we take our afternoon walk.  I love the cool long nights and warm wool sweaters.  I especially love the way the air smells when everyone has a log burning in their fireplace.  Autumn is my favorite season! We have some wonderful walking paths around here and the girls are finally old enough to get out of the stroller and walk along with us as we take our daily stroll.    It takes hours just to go a mile or so since they want to stop and pick up leaves and sticks and rocks.  They have to touch everything!  In the picture on the left, they're racing to the water puddle up ahead!

The poem I quoted in the picture was written by Helen Keller when she was only 13 years old.  I remember reading a book about her when I was 6 years old (I still have the book) and it seems I've admired her my whole life.  You can read the poem in its entirety here:  <click>

Blind and deaf since age 18 months, HK learned to speak by observing the way "sounds" felt on her teacher's throat.   Can you imagine that?  Her first word was "water".  She grew up to do many amazing things. 

We're having some speech issues in our house too.  Gwen is 28 months old and has been with us for 14 months now but her language skills are not quite where we think they should be.  In many ways, Maddy (one month younger and home only 2 months) is grasping spoken English more easily than Gwen.  We're looking into speech therapy to help her communicate a little bit better.  She's such a easy-going little girl but I can tell that she really would like to be able to be understood more often.  She does try to speak but she sounds like she has a mouth full of marbles.   Lots of our friends in the adoption community have used speech therapy for their for their children and the benefits have been remarkable.  We hope it helps our sweet babies too! (Maddy will also very likely need it since she was over 2 when adopted).

Some people have commented that they can't participate in our FFFF challenge this week because they don't live in a place that has colorful trees.   My picture wasn't the colorful spectacle of Autumn that I wanted it to be so I morphed two photos together to get the one I wanted (using FotoFusion by Lumapix). Truth is, we *do* have gorgeous Fall colors here.  I just didn't have my camera and my kids all together in the right place to capture it.  So I did it on the computer and I think that's just as good! 

I love having an excuse to be creative and I hope these FFFF challenges can really challenge some of you too!

This week's FFFF participants:

Crybaby

Family FotoFun Friday Challenge #6 
Post your pictures on your blog and leave a comment here before 11/17/06.

This week's FFFF challenge is Crybabies.  If you have a child and a camera in the same room long enough, there's going to be a photo opportunity for some sad faces.  Normally, you delete those photos but now you have an excuse to save one or two and post them to your blog. 

Gwen is usually pretty happy and easygoing but she has her moments.  The moment captured here is the result of Mommy wanting to take a picture of her incredibly cute pig-tails before going outside for our afternoon walk.

She wanted to stand in front of the sliding glass door but she lacks an understanding of the perils of back-lighting, so Mommy suggested that she move a few steps to the left and this was the result:  No picture of beautiful pigtails but a great picture of a beautiful Crybaby!

Maddy, not to be outdone, had her own Crybaby moment on the walk.  She wanted to play on the rocks but mean Mommy insisted that we keep walking.    Just like Gwen's hysterics, Maddy was happy as can be just 10 seconds later.

This week's FFFF participants:

Loving Lydia Mikala Yin Born in Our Hearts My Cup Runneth Over Just Keep Swimming Davis Days Mei Mei Journal Life With Dallas Katie Lin Comes Home Two "Twin" Terrors Chou Chou Shu (Stinky Mouse) The Smith Family's Adventures From Here To There... The Daily Grind Table For Five Hiking Through Life... Sophie Makes Six China Moon Red Thread to Katelyn Leap of Faith Cross Family Website Journey to Gianna

Our 5th Anniversary

Another year has come and gone and look at how our family has changed!  Michael has graduated HS and is in College, Gwen has morphed from our darling little baby into our darling little girl and Maddy has joined our happy clan.  Life is so good and I owe all of my happiness to the man who offered me his ring and his name five years ago as all of our family and friends watched through teary eyes.  Happy Anniversary Sweetheart!  It's the Big Oh-Five!  I'm so looking forward to the next 45! PS:  Mum and Dad, thanks for the gorgeous flowers!