Do YOU believe?

I am so saddened by a comment Lily made to me the other day. She said that kids at her school were saying that Santa is not real because you can't see him (she will be 6 years old on Christmas, BTW). Luckily, she didn't point blank ask me if this was the case or not, because I'm not sure how I would've answered it. Somehow, I dodged the bullet and was able to change the subject without her noticing. So, I was off to find a copy of The Polar Express to help her keep believing. We set the girls up in front of our big screen television in the basement tonight with the lights turned off. They also had popcorn, chocolate milk and a comfy blankie for the big viewing. They loved it. Actually, so did we. I hope we can at least get a couple of more years of believing out of her.

The BEST big sister ever!

This is just one of the many reasons that Lily is the BEST big sister!
Lia is going to kill me for this one day! :)

Tag, I'm it!

I've officially been "tagged" for the first time. I'm not exactly sure what that means, but I think I'm supposed to follow some directions from Casey and make a few other friends do the same.


Here's what I'm supposed to do:


The Rules:
1. Grab the nearest book
2. Open it to page 56
3. Find the 5th sentence
4.Post the text of the sentence in your blog along with instructions
5. Don't dig for your favorite book, the cool book or the most intellectual - Pick the CLOSEST


Now, the funny thing is that I just started reading again (seriously, it's been since college). And it's the infamous Twilight series. Unfortunately, my Twilight book is upstairs on my nightstand and NOT the closest one to me.


The closest one is the book AJ read to Lily last night, "Pirates Past Noon -- Magic Tree House #4. Here is the sentence: "They grew bigger and bigger until they spread out like a huge green cape." Sorry, I'm sure you would've rather heard a romantic quote from Edward, LOL.


Anyway, I'm tagging Shannon, Perrin and Jen!

and the party goes on!

Since we will be taking the girls to Disney World in a few weeks, we decided to scale down both of their birthdays this year. We let them take cupcakes to school and then are just doing the small family party. We celebrated Lia's birthday with her grandparents this past weekend. Here are a few pics from the festivities.


Here are the party-goers (minus Mama and Dada). Left to right: YeYe, Nai Nai, Memaw and Pepaw.




And a couple of shots of the girls thoroughly enjoying the cake!


And we can't forget PRESENTS!

Happy Birthday sweet Lia!

Happy 3rd Birthday, Lia!

Lia Jade Yangxi is 3 today!!! Since today was a work/school day, we sent some cupcakes for Lia to share with her friends at daycare.

I sent a camera for her teachers to take some pictures for us. To our surprise, they let Lily come down from her class for the party. I thought that was so sweet. Although our health-conscious oldest daughter refused a cupcake since she had just had Oreo's in her class. What other 5.5 year-old would do that??? Not her sister, that's for sure!!!

We will also be celebrating with the grandparents this weekend. I'll be sure to post more pics after that shindig.

Here comes Santa Claus!

We took the girls for their annual sitting on Santa's lap picture. As usual, Lia was her stoic self and refused to acknowledge Santa or the photographer. Go figure! And, Lily, of course talked up a storm telling the big jolly guy every single toy she wanted for Christmas. We finally had to drag her away.

Wordless Wednesday

Well, I thought my girls were getting bigger......

until I discovered them sitting comfortably together in this standard-sized laundry basket also containing a sofa pillow and down blanket watching Mickey Mouse Clubhouse!!







And I also had to share this picture that I took couple of weeks ago showing off some of their new Matilda Jane duds! They were purposefully trying NOT to smile for me.

Here we go -- my first blog entry!

I'm officially blogging! Unfortunately, I'm a horrible writer, but I have been known to take a cute picture or two of our girls. I'll try to get AJ to do some witty writing for you occasionally, but for the most part, you're stuck with me and my camera.

So my first entry is not too boring, I thought I would start off sharing pictures of both girls' recent Gotcha Day anniversaries. For those not familiar with "adoption" lingo, Gotcha Day is the day each of our girls was placed on our arms. We recently celebrated Lia's 2nd Gotcha Day (August 28) and Lily's 5th (October 27).

We took Lia to Build-a-Bear (and Lily got to build one too, of course). Lia picked a monkey and dressed her in her favorite color purple.

And Lily picked a panda and dressed her in a pink princess outfit.




And for Lily's 5th Gotcha Day, we took the girls to the local indoor playground. It wasn't near as exciting as our previous celebrations but she and Lia enjoyed themselves.