Hot Tubbin'

It's pretty amazing to see how far Jillian has come in the last eight months.

Guitar Hero

The girls have been playing with our old Guitar Hero stuff and this afternoon I was listening to my new Jared Mahone CD when Jillian came in carrying the guitar and wanted to put on a show for me.

 

 

Memories

On Saturday, Jeannette, the girls and I had lunch with my mom. We were making small talk and I wondered which was larger in land mass, China or the US. (They're about even, if you are curious.)

After this, a few minutes later, out of the blue and for the first time, Jillian started talking about China. (I am so glad Jeannette recognized it for what it was and didn't just ignore it as random babbling...)

First she told us that her home was small and that there wasn't much food. She told us she was hungry and then said, "Very hungry." We didn't get much else out of her but it was fascinating to get a brief glimpse into her perception of her previous life. I was sad to hear that she felt hungry often  but glad to know that we might someday get to learn more about her life before us.

Phillip Turns 21

The Girls of Summer

Down by the River

We made our first trip as a family down to the Columbia River a couple days ago, just to walk a ways along the water on the Vancouver side.  It'll be fun to go back sometime when the weather is warmer. Some amazing houses on the bluff overlooking the Gorge! Mount Hood was beautiful right behind the kids but it didn't show up in the picture, unfortunately.

Keepin' the Blog Alive

A couple of pictures today from the playground at Melody's school, just so the blog doesn't become completely comatose.

A Sunny Saturday at the Park

Fishin' Around

The girls got it in their heads that they wanted a pet fish so last weekend Jeannette took them to the pet store and they got two beta fish.

Jillian's Teacher

Last week, there was a Chinese New Year's celebration at Jillian's school. In the midst of all the madness, we managed to get a few moments with her teacher, Ms. Hu.

 

A Few Recent Photos

I'm back to having little motivation for keeping this blog updated.  Sorry!  Just to put something up here, I thought I'd post a few recent pictures.  This first one is from early January, when the weather was really nice and Jillian was wearing a cute outfit featuring a hand-me-down ladybug sweater from Melody . . .

I took this following picture just this afternoon.  I thought Jillian looked extremely cute in her denim and boots . . .

And here is a picture of Jillian on her "new" bike, which is actually Melody's old bike with new training wheels added on.  She does pretty well on flat surfaces but doesn't really have the strength and coordination yet to push uphill.

And here's big sister with her pink bike . . .

First Snow

Jillian grew up in southern China, where the weather is quite tropical.  Today, it snowed for the first time this year in Vancouver and I can only assume this was her first exposure to snow.  She was reluctant but I lured her outside for a few moments.  She hasn't been feeling too well today so she's a bit lethargic.  A few times, I've caught her just absently gazing out the window at the falling flakes.

First Moments with Jillian

We traveled in China with Steve and Elizabeth as they adopted their son, Theo.  The other day, Steve sent me some photos that were on his camera, which included these from our first few seconds with Jillian, just before Theo walked into the room and changed their lives.  These are a lot better than what I already had so I thought I'd post them here.

Twinkle Twinkle Little China Girl

Jillian's teacher from Ben Franklin Elementary's Chinese immersion program sent home a CD with some songs on it and this evening Jillian had a great time singing and dancing along to them.  This clip is her final performance of the night.

A Violent Home

Jeannette told me I needed to video the girls playing with the Nerf swords tonight,  just to document that they actually did enjoy each other at least part of the time.

Introducing Jillian to Christmas

Yesterday, we put up our Christmas tree so I was careful to catch a shot of Jillian hanging her very first Christmas ornament:

 

We really don't know what exposure she's had to Christmas, so I used Google Translate to try to give her a little info:  这是一个圣诞树。我们将装饰它。圣诞节是当我们庆祝耶稣的诞生。圣诞节是在三个星期。This is a Christmas tree.  We will decorate it.  Christmas is when we celebrate the birth of Jesus.  Christmas is in three weeks.

I also used Google Translate to have a little bit of a conversation with her.  We knew from her teacher and her demeanor this week that, for the first time, she was showing evidence of being homesick for China.  I asked her if she missed her family in China and she said yes.  I assured her that they loved her and that we love her, and that we'll be her family forever.  She has spent a lot of time with the video camera that I bought, watching videos from our time in China.  She still doesn't seem to be overly upset by these videos but rather just enjoys seeing them.  We feel pretty fortunate that our transition issues with Jillian have been so minor.

Volunteers at Jillian's Orphanage

Article About Shenzhen Volunteers

I learned about this article on an email list I'm part of.  It's from Shenzhen, China, and tells about volunteers who were honored for their work at our Jillian's orphanage.  I had heard long ago that President Obama's half-brother was associated with the orphanage, but it seemed far fetched.  This article confirms that he performs and teaches piano to the kids there!

First Day of School in the US

Today was Jillian's first day of kindergarten in Miss Hu's class at Ben Franklin Elementary.  I, of course, forgot to take my camera and so this is the only photo I got as we dropped her off, using my little camera phone.  She had a very good day.  Miss Hu was impressed by her effort and said she participated in the class and seemed to be accepted by the other kids.  She said that it does take Jillian longer to do things, but other than that, I had the impression that she appears to be on the right track, so far as it can be evaluated in just one day.  Jillian had a huge smile on her face when I picked her up after school.

A Chinese Interpretation of Thanksgiving Day

Jillian loves to eat, so she loved Thanksgiving dinner on Friday.  I thought it was interesting that she was glad to use a fork and spoon except for the turkey, which she preferred to eat with her chopsticks.

Baby Steps

Yesterday and today were good days, celebrating Thanksgiving with both sides of the family.  What made them particularly good is the fact that our girls' sibling rivalry--primarily Melody toward Jillian--seemed to ease off a bit.  This is such a relief as it was totally draining to have to try to balance every little action, word and favor out . . . and even then there were many meltdowns.  We're still tired--Jillian can be pretty demanding of our attention, especially Jeannette's--but it felt today like we have begun to get a glimpse of how things can be and should be.