The English "floodgate" has opened!

Everyone has told me that Ellie would have a speech explosion after being here for three months. She has learned a lot since October, but it has seemed to be only a word here and a word there. (and in a sentence with Chinese also) Well the 3 month mark came on January 16th, and everyone was sooo right! In the last week she has been spouting LOTS of English, phrases and sentences. Since we know some Chinese she still talks to us and us to her in Mandarin sometimes, but she has been putting it all together the last week. Yesterday morning she found me in the laundry room getting ready for church. (unfortunately our clothes don't normally make it back up to the closets!) In her pathetic whining voice said "Mama...I want sausage." The child loves meat!!! I just looked at her and asked "did you say you want sausage?" She said yes....with an a on the end yesa. Wow I said.........that was a great job! But, NO we have to get to church......... eat a poptart!

Urumqi Reunion

Grace and Ellie together again!

Brooke, Vickie, and Grace (sleeping beauty)

Rorey making the moves on the girls!!

Ellie and Kelsey together again!

Last Saturday we braved the cold weather and drove up to Joliet to meet up with some "cyber friends"..Vickie...her daughter Grace (who came from Ellie's orphanage) Grace's big sister Brooke, and Kelsey.... another friend who visited Ellie and Grace in China before they came home. Grace is sooo sweet as you can see, she is a year younger than Ellie, and came home a year ago in October. We planned to meet at Chuck E Cheese...which was a zoo obviously because it was a Saturday afternoon! The kids played for a while and then we went to TGI Friday's to get some real food, and where we would be able to hear each other speaking without screaming across the table!! Grace feel asleep in the car on the way to lunch, so Vickie had to hold the poor little thing while she was trying to eat ! She did finally wake up and then decided to snack on Ellie and Rorey's french fries. Rorey was sitting right there helping to feed her and then asked Vickie if she wanted to go on a date!! He is so full of .....something!! Grace is very tiny compared to Ellie, not that Ellie is very big! Of course compared to her brother Ellie is very tiny, so everything is relative I guess!! Ellie was looking at Grace's picture before we left to drive up that day, and it was obvious to me that she remembered Grace. But it upset her when she saw the pictures from her orphanage of Grace as a baby, and when I said we were going to see her. Maybe she thought we were heading back to China? Or perhaps it just brings back memories of leaving China? We never know when something is going to send her over the edge! Hopefully in a few months Ellie will be able to tell us why she is upset by certain things, and we will be able to help her deal with her fears. We had a great day, and it was so fun to finally "see" each other after all of the e-mails and blog reading!!

Christmas is COOL

Ellie climbing on Uncle John

Riley checking out one of his gifts

Ellie and her new doll from the Severns'

Rorey, Riley, Ellie and Teresa checking out the stockings

Thacker cousins at Nana's house

Christmas Eve ..Rorey, Ellie and Daddy

Christmas was on the back burner around here this year, as has been this blog if you didn't notice! LOL! We are still trying to adjust to our new family dynamics, and I just was not in the holiday spirit!! Apparently Ellie has never heard of Christmas....she stared at us like we had lost our minds when we drug the huge Christmas tree bag up from the basement and started putting a tree up in the middle of the living room!! We did get some baking done, which Ellie enjoyed helping with. (and eating) Rorey, Ellie and I also made a gingerbread house, which they loved. But they got really mad when I threw it away and wouldn't let them eat it!! We decided to spend the night at my parents house on Christmas eve, so we could be there for the family soup supper and then go to church that evening. Ellie is so funny because she LOVES to sing! She knows several songs in Chinese and now she knows Jesus loves me and Jingle bells in English! But at church on Christmas eve we were singing lots of songs that she does not know, and she didn't care she was still singing along ....really loudly.... in her half English half Chinese mumbo jumbo talk!! People were looking at us. She was that loud. So Santa had to find us at Nana and Papa's house, which of course he could easily do. All of the kids got way to many presents and had lots of fun opening all of them. We had Christmas dinner for my mothers whole family at her house, people came and went for lunch, and desserts, and then dinner (yuck, who can eat again?) We had to come home Christmas day evening because I had to work the next day. When we got home I realized the kids hadn't opened the presents from Rick and I!! I'm so mean I made them wait until Saturday morning.. we had our own little Christmas morning!! Then Sunday morning we got up and made our way to Rick's parent's house for Christmas with his family! These have got to be the three most spoiled children I have ever seen!! We had a nice day and the kids got even more presents from Nana and Papa Severns, Aunt Debbie and Aunt Teresa!! WOW it looks like a toy store threw up in this house!! Where in the world are we going to put all of this?? It is time for some serious cleaning!! Luckily Rick's Mom offered to take some toys to her house for the kids to play with when they go to visit them. I'm definately going to take her up on that offer. So that is our Christmas in a nutshell!! Nothing crazy, no dramatic moments, just Ellie looking at us like we were totally out of our heads.