Anna's First Portrait

Here is Anna's first portrait. Forgive me for saying it, but I think it is so precious. She's adorable! This week at Day School, Anna moves from the "Tots" Class to the "Early Preschool Class". Of course, we are thrilled with the progress that she is making and are so proud of her. Yesterday, Ms. Tershana (her new teacher who also taught Kent) told me that the other kids were trying to pick Anna up and carry her around -- they were thinking she is a baby (because she is so small compared to them). Ms. Tershana had to explain that they cannot pick Anna up and carry her around!! :-)

Anna Comes Through Two Surgeries in Less Than One Month...Beautifully.

We thank God that Anna has come through two different surgeries in the past month beautifully. One surgery was extremely easy - ear tubes, bonding placed on teeth, and stint built. Second surgery, cleft palate repair....not so easy. Apparently, Anna's cleft palate was extremely wide. So the surgery was quite complicated. We are so grateful for the expertise that we have using Children's Healthcare of Atlanta and the Cranio-Facial team there. Dr. Williams, head of the Cranio-Facial team, performed the surgery.

Anna says: "no photos please!!"

Scary times as she came out of surgery - these are on day 2 - after lots of the swelling and bruising had gone down. And this is Anna's favorite part of the entire adventure...moma and Granny Reba circled the 2nd floor of the hospital MANY times with Anna in a little red wagon and all her equipment in tow!

Anna's First Ski Trip - Beech Mountain, NC

Anna Sees Snow for the 1st Time!
For President's Weekend we took the kids skiing at Beech Mountain, NC. Although Anna was too little to ski, she had lots of fun hanging out with brothers and cousins (Quinna and Moraya). Here are some fun photos in the snow!!

That brother - he's a teaser....

Don't even think about it, brother!!

I thought Spencer was seriously considering throwing this snowball at her...then he started busting out laughing when he knew he had tricked me!

Water Fun...

I love this photo of Anna and Kent together. She was having such fun getting "escorted" around the pool in Beech Mountain!

Anna's First "Ski Trip" Includes Swimming!

Anna loves swimming with her brothers...

and goodness knows she gets enough attention! They like to push her around in her little floatie. So much so that frequently I have to tell them to back off a bit - I'm afraid in their enthusiam, they are going to tilt her over and into the water!!

Chinese New Year!!

Wow - we had such a great time celebrating Chinese New Year for the first time ever this year! We went to a wonderful party with lots of other beautiful children from China and their parents who live in North Atlanta. My friend, Kelly, invited us and we had such a great time meeting other families. Anna had a great time and seemed to be thrilled to see other children just like her (only much bigger!). She was by far the smallest there -- in size -- not in age!! We also went over to John and Elizabeth's home (our wonderful neighbors who have also adopted from China). John's mother, father and aunt were there. John's mother gave each child a red envelop and the kids were thrilled! It was wonderful learning all about the holiday. In January, Spencer and I had been to an exhibit at the High Museum called "The First Emperor". It was wonderful and had some of the terracotta warriors and told the story of how they were found. We had a very good history month in January.