A real live doll……

Okay…..so my three daughters are playing in their room with the door locked….suddenly it gets very, very, very quiet. Curiousity gets the best of me so I knock on the door and here’s what I found….

Celebration time!

In honor of Lydia’s one year anniversary spent with us….we all went to celebrate by watching the circus last night and eating at Red Lobster.  Jeff’s birthday is this week, too, so the Red Lobster request was from him

Lydia loves animals and she particularly enjoyed the elephants, tigers, and horses.  In fact when the tigers left the ring, she said, “Tiger, bye bye….” then had a cute little pout on her face!

Here are some pics….

Here is another one of my favorite pictures of Lydia I took just the other day…..

My how time has flown……

It’s already been one year since we first got to hold our sweet little Lydia!  Today is the official anniversary of our “Gotcha day” and we’ve never been the same since I think about those first few days of when I was wondering if she was autistic because she was so quiet and scared and did not say a single peep.  Wow….now she babbles all day long and recently has started saying lots of words.  She always makes us laugh because she loves imitating the last word of our sentences.  So when we say, “Lydia, are you a parrot?”  She’ll say, “Parrot….parrot…parrot.”  Cracks us up every time!  I remember her twisting off child-proof medicine caps with ease when she was barely over a year old.  I remember the look of delight when she first tasted a banana.  I am not for sure that she even chewed it up on the way down!  Then she started crying because I wouldn’t let her eat the peel!

Now she’s running, jumping, and doing sommersaults on the floor.  She loves playing “lion and tiger” with Nathan.  And then there’s hide and seek.  She just covers her eyes and thinks no one else can “find” her.

One of our favorite times with Lydia is when we pray before dinner.  She prays with one eye open and one eye shut.  We didn’t realize that when we were praying, we were all looking at her with one  eye open just to see what she was doing.  So now, she thinks that when we pray, you always keep one eye open.  It’s absolutely hilarious

Here are some of our favorite pics of her!

Lauren's classmates whom all ADORE Lydia

Pics from our trip to Montana

Here are some pics from our recent trip to Montana!  We had no access to cell phones, internet, TV, and even local phones!!!  Now I call that a vacation!

First stop was Chimney Rock, NE to check out this famous Oregon Trail site….

Chimney Rock

Then, of course, we had to see for ourselves how deep those wagon ruts were, along with the carvings on the rock made by the pioneers….

Wagon Ruts

Pioneer names...

We have a hunch that the above autograph might be one of our relatives – wouldn’t that be cool???!!!  That is exactly how the Carsons signed their names – with that beautiful “C”!

Two tuckered kiddos!!!!!

Did I mention that we DROVE over 5,000 miles on this trip???  It was a tiny bit squished with all of us plus my mom, but we all got along just fine

We stopped at Great Falls, MT to see an amazing museum about Lewis and Clark, and also tried to imagine them portaging their canoes along the falls.  In that area is the world’s smallest river, the Roe River.  It flows 200 feet between Great Springs and the MO River.  It’s really neat.  Mom just HAD to get a little sample of that river for my brother, Dave…..do you think it’s legal???  We teased her about it all the time!

Lewis and Clark Museum in Great Falls, MT

The lengths my mom will go to....

World's Smallest River

Probably one of the highlights of the trip, believe it or not, was watching this snake devour a fish!!!!  We watched it for about a half hour – great entertainment, eh???  I think the fish looks a little stressed…..

Our next stop was Choteau, MT, where I ran in the Grizzly Marathon.  It was a great little town – beautiful scenery with tons of ranch land to run through.  Just a slight problem….it was 24 miles of GRAVEL!

Scenery along the route of the marathon

More scenery along the marathon route....BEAUTIFUL!

Lydia running to greet me at the finish line!

As we left Chouteau and headed to Glacier National Park, Lydia fell asleep with some gummy bears in her mouth.  I had no idea how many she’d stuffed into her mouth until they started coming out one by one.  We all laughed until we cried as they continued to emerge from the depths of her mouth

We went with some friends of ours, the Hales, to Glacier National Park and here are some things we did there!  I am ready to MOVE there asap!!!!!!!!

Nathan actually went swimming in this 40 degree water!

Lydia and Grammy skipping rocks in the stream

Rebekah decided to take a dip, too!

Lauren enjoyed collecting rocks and making channels for the water to flow!

We all hiked about five miles total to see this beautiful lake and the surrounding waterfalls!

Then a few of us made the ten mile trek over the Siyeh pass in Glacier, which included a 2000 foot climb.  It was an absolutely  stunning view at the top!  Along the way, we saw marmots, big horn sheep, mountain goats, SNOW, innumerable varieties of wildflowers, but unfortunately no bears

Finally at the top!

We also rode horses and went white water rafting in Glacier…..then begrudgingly, we all had to head home   We stopped by Buffalo Jump State Park and the Headwaters of the Missouri River near Three Forks, MT , too.

Buffalo Jump State Park

Headwaters of the MO River

On the way home, Lydia developed what we affectionately call ACSSS – Acute Car Seat Stress Syndrome.  This syndrome made her scream at the top of her lungs for, sometimes, hours at a time.  So we ended up stopping by a Walgreens and buying some hot orange colored ear plugs!  That made her more mad because I think she thought it was candy since it was so brightly colored and she didn’t get any!  Anyhow….I’ll choose to end with this picture of the vacation instead of Lydia crying

AHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!

Well, whaddya know?  Miss Twinkle toes made it into the pool this week – hurray!!!   Now she cries when we leave!  She is really enjoying playing in the kiddie pool and even “tries” to swim like Nathan, Lauren, and Rebekah since she watches them on the swim team.   I finally did have some batteries in the camera – so here they are!

Lydia's pool debut!

Getting braver!!!

Lydia had to cross many "sprinklers" to get to this point!

In other news,  Nathan did really well at the State Track Meet in Hutchinson, KS.  He placed third in the softball throw, tenth in the long jump, and third in the 4X100 relay.  Here are a few pics from that meet:

Lauren at a recent swim meet

New words :)

I was encouraged by my friend, Ruth’s, suggestion of letting this blog be a scrapbook of sorts for Lydia.  In spite of my best efforts to scrapbook my children’s every moment, it has just not happened!   I started out well, but have not scrapbooked in about 2 years

So….I thought I’d write out all of Lydia’s words she’s learned and can say fairly well:  bubble and Momma (by far her best two!),  dajie (Chinese for older sister), gege (Chinese for older brother), yes and no (oh great……).  Of course she can’t reproduce them on command.  Everything is only on her schedule and when it suits her best….

She loves to spin and twirl to any type of music but Toby Mac is one of her favorites.  I think we’ve influenced her a tad, though!

Nathan won a spot to compete in the baseball throw at the Kansas State Track meet next Saturday.  So he has been practicing a lot outside on our street.  Almost every day, he draws a chalk line and throws about 15 throws.  Then we measure to see how far he’s thrown.  Lydia watches us all the time.  After observing for several days, she decided to go and get the ball for herself.   She went to the chalk line, did the same windup Nathan does, then threw the ball all of about two inches.  Nathan and I laughed until we sobbed!!!  She’s such an observant little gal!

Twinkle Toes

Well, little Miss Twinkle Toes went swimming today for the first time.   The most she did was stick her big toe into the water and fountains.   Any splashes of water on the face was greeted with a frown or scowl.  She hung onto my finger until it practically turned blue   But I know that by summer’s end, she’ll be jumping in like everyone else!  And wouldn’t you know….my camera batteries were shot and I didn’t get any pictures!  I’ll take some next time and post them.

New pictures of Lydia

Wow – It has been a VERY long time since I blogged on Lydia’s website!  So much has happened since then and now that school is out and I’ve gotten through some of the fog associated with adding a new child to the family, I can post more often.  I will start out with a few pictures of our trip to Winter Park this past February to go skiing with two other families.  We had a wonderful time and Lydia loved the snow!!

Skiing in Winter Park, CO

Enjoying the Snow with Grammy and Nathan

One of the things that astounds me about Lydia is her instant recognition of all people who are Asian.  Anytime she sees them, she pulls my finger – making sure I notice, then she laughs and claps.   We gave her Ivy, the Asian American Girl doll, for Christmas and she absolutely loves it.  Well….actually it’s for all three girls

Lydia and Ivy

Lydia is a budding musician.  She loves playing the piano when the other kids are practicing. She is really determined!

I guess we need to start the indoctrination to KU early, huh??!

In April, we had the unfortunate incident of running Lydia to the ER for her first time!  We were at Crown Center and she fell, lacerating her left eye.  By the next morning, she had somehow managed to untie two of the four stitches and by twenty-four hours, she had all of them untied and removed!

Some of my favorite photos of Lydia:

Christmas Snapshots

Michael and Chris

Getting ready to go out!

Aunt Linda and Cousin Scott

All the Grandkiddos

Aunt Lisa and Cousin Jessica

Aunt Sharon and Uncle Lou

Celebrating with Grammy

The Reddick side

Climbing up and down boxes with Aunt Darla

Playing at Crayola Land

Hugging on Uncle Roger's Teddy Bear

Zonked out with Aunt Kim, Grammy, and Aunt Helen

Lydia’s Meet and Greet Party!

Last Sunday, we were so blessed to have so many friends stop by and see Lydia for the first time! We had such a great time and want to thank everyone who took precious time out of their day to join us!

Tonya, Sandy, and Joan

Tonya, Sandy, and Joan did an awesome job providing goodies, cake, fruit, and flowers. Way to go and thank you SO MUCH for all you did!!!!!!!!!

One HUGE cake!

These friends also graciously donated money to an organization called, “Packages of Hope”, which is located in Tulsa, OK. This organization raises funds specifically for Lydia’s orphanage (QianJiang Social Welfare Institute). They asked us to shoot for a goal of between $250 and $500 in order to set up a library at the orphanage. All together, we raised $460 – YAHOOO!!!!

Thank you from the bottom of our hearts!!! You all have literally changed the lives of all of the orphans who will live there!

My running buddies!

Lisa

Landon and Rachel

Alan and Regina

Lana and Grayson

Eleanor

April and Patty

Grammy

Allan

Wally

The Jones' and Zhangs'

What a blessed day – we are overwhelmed with gratitude!!!!!!!!!!