Double Happiness

Such amazing friends. Thank you all so much!

• Sincerest THANKS to everyone who commented or emailed me privately to tell me how much they've enjoyed and will miss our blog.   Your comments have touched me very deeply.  I wish I could respond to everyone personally but I'm afraid I would only have time to type a few words and that wouldn't do justice to how I feel about the love and support and friendship you've shown me over the months (and, in some cases, years).  Some of the nicest families I've ever known are in the China adoption community and there are many of you that I'd love to meet someday so please email me if you're ever planning to be in the San Jose area.  It would be my pleasure to get to finally meet you face to face and watch our kids play together.  If you survive my home cooking and my overly affectionate cat, I'll give you the password to our private blog.  You're all wonderful! 
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• Updates -- I'll post tiny updates on this blog just to "tickle" the RSS feed so people will know that there's something new on the private blog.  So don't cancel your subscription if you want those updates.
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• Family Foto Fun Friday (FFFF) will be taken over by Lissa (from Loving Lydia).  I've known Lissa for two years and I have no doubt that she'll do a wonderful job with it!  If you've never seen her blog, I promise you'll fall in love with Lydia.  She's one of the most animated little cutie pies I've ever seen!  If my kids let me, I'll try to participate in her FFFF challenges from time to time too.
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• China 2008, anyone?  We'll be in Beijing for the WWW conference next year so we decided to spend an extra week or two touring China.  We don't have any definite plans for what we'd do or where we'd go but thought it would be fun to get a bunch of families together for this.  We could arrange something through Lotus Tours.  If you're interested, post a comment here or email me and we'll put our heads together and figure out how to make this really fun.  The only date that is solid is that we'll arrive in Beijing April 20, 2008. 

Password Required

We've always known that we'd put a password on the blog when the girls turned three.  Sadly, that time has come.   

Friends and Family are invited to join us <here>.  I've already emailed most of you and sent you the password.

We've made lots of friends through this blog and we value your friendship but we had to make the tough choice to restrict access to the new blog to those people we've actually met in person.   

If you are a family member or a friend that we know in REAL LIFE and you didn't get my email with the password, please don't have hurt feelings.  You weren't intentionally overlooked!  There were hundreds of people in my address book and I just quickly skimmed through it.  Please contact me (or leave a comment) and I'll reply back and send you the password! 

If you're a Blogliner and you want to follow the new blog, don't unsubscribe.  I'm going to keep the old blog (this one) alive so I can announce when there's an update on the private blog.  RSS feeds don't seem work on private Typepad blogs so this is how I'll let you know about updates.

If anyone is interested in taking over the FFFF challenges, please let me know!

Thanks for two fantastic years!

Awwww....

I know every parent thinks they have the most beautiful children in the whole world.  When you love someone, it's impossible not to see everything about them as beautiful.  So I guess it's no surprise that I actually gasped when these breath-taking photos of Madeline came up on my computer screen.   

Maddy is so graceful and elegant!  She has perfect posture and the proportions of a super model (and the appetite/diet of one too).  Physically, she's like a tightly wound rubber band.   Emotionally, she's like a French Poodle:  smart and entertaining and eager to please but always jumping up and down in your lap.   Laid back?  Absolutely Not!  But Madeline Abigail is a joy in our lives and we can hardly believe that it was just 10 months ago that she joined our family.

More Gwenny Bday pics

I couldn't resist sharing a few more pictures from three days ago when Gwen turned three.  She's such a little darling!  She's really proud of herself that she can hold down her pinky with her thumb show three fingers.  She's been practicing and practicing this and now she's a champ at it!

In the last week, she's decided not to call me Mama anymore.  Now, I'm officially MOMMY.  She likes the sound of it too and will even correct herself if she slips and says Mama.  Let me just say that my heart almost bursts with love and adoration for this child when I hear her precious little voice say Mommy.  I really don't think any child has ever sounded cuter.  She's got a personality to go with that sweet little voice too.

When I give her a snack or bring her a cup of juice or find her Lovey and hand it to her, she always says "Oh!  Thank you, Mommy!"  Yeah, you can read that and think, yeah - that's cute, but you would have to HEAR it to get the full impact.  It's so incredibly sweet that it makes my teeth ache!

Gwenny is THREE!

Today is Gwen's birthday.  She's three years old!  But it's a secret!

Since the girls are just 36 days apart in age, we decided to combine their birthdays and throw them a big party.   So we'll do presents and cake and sing the birthday song on July 14th. 

Gwenny is such a smart little girl but she's not reading the blog yet.  So, I think it's probably safe for Mommy to say this here:

Happy Birthday, Gwendolyn Claire!  I love you my sweet Birthday Princess!