Happy New Year! How can it ever compare to 2011!?!?

Sorry I haven't posted as much since we have been home.  I have been sick twice and Jason was sick once and with the holidays....let's just say it has been C-R-A-Z-Y! :)

Charlotte loved her first Christmas!  She quickly got the hang of opening gifts.  Every time she would open a gift, she would get a shocked look on her face and she would ohhh and ahhh! :  It was SO CUTE!  She got the hang of unwrapping so well that later I caught her opening her cousins gift upstairs! LOL!

The picture on the right is of her ohhhhing and awwing when she opened each gift. :)

Things have been going amazingly well.  I am in awe of how this little girl has adjusted.  We love her so much and it is so hard to believe she has only been home 1 month!  If you have any questions, please feel free to email me at mccfamily5@bellsouth.net  I would love to help others on their adoption journey. 

When we started looking into Lanzhou & Wuwei, we found there really isn't much information available and certainly not many pictures.  So I am working on getting our picutes downloaded to an online site to share with those that might be interested.  If you have any questions, about Lanzhou or Wuwei, please feel free to email me too.

Things about Charlotte lately:
-Her vocabulary is growing and now she is putting 2 words together. Examples: No Will, STOP Will, Love you, Go Baba etc...  along with mama, Drew, Ben, Will which comes out more like "ill" LOL! :)  She will also try to repeat everything I ask her to say if there is not a big crowd around.

-She has had a couple more night terrors but, I think it was due to new people being around (Jason's parents & sister came to meet her) and just being out of routine. I feel so helpless when this happens though.  There is no consoling her and she seems so scared. :(

-She LOVES to be outside & will cry and point to the door to go out.  Unfortunately, the weather has been unpredictable so we aren't always able to go out.  She loves her swingset!

-She is OVERLY affectionate now and we are LOVING that!  This started right after we got home.  She will pucker her lips & point to them, wanting to kiss whoever she is looking at.  We are a VERY affectionate family but, I don't think she had been used to this much affection at all...but you can tell she loves it! :)

-I am always telling her "I love you!" in kind of a sing songy way, and she has started telling me "love you".  So cute!  She hasn't said it on her own yet, just after I say it first but, it melts this mamas heart!

-She can do the splits which really shocked us. :)  So I think she would do well with gymnastics and, I am planning to start a mommy & me class with her soon.

-She loves her clothes.  Every morning, she gets a huge smile on her face as she holds up her clothes. 

-She loves her hairbows.  If I forget to put in a hairbow or it has fallen out, she will bring me 5 or 6 and motion to do pigtails. :)

-She is very easy going.  She has adjusted to her car seat now and when I tell her "wanna go somewhere with mama?"  She gets excited and definitely wants to go.

-She seems to love all of the boys equally now and they just ADORE her too!  I think the new might be wearing off a tad bit though, thankfully. :)   Drew cried one day this week because she likes their Legos and they forget to put them up so, she has destroyed a couple of their creations...oops!  He asked if he could spank her for getting into the Legos...ugh no I don't think so. :P  I told him he just has to learn to put them up out of her reach.  They haven't been used to a toddler so this is new to them. :)

-This girl LOVES to eat.  I think food must have not been readily available to her.  It seems sometimes that she can't get full.  At night, as we are getting into bed, she will sometimes motion she is hungry.  We haven't noticed any other food issues except that she doesn't seem to be have eatten much meat before at all.  So we have had to slowly introduce chicken and especially beef.

-She repeats motions of people that are around her.  Like, we were in the car with my niece and she had her leg propped up on her other leg and her arms crossed.  Charlotte did the same thing. :)  When she would change positions, she would try and mimick that position as well. funny girl!

-She went on her first John Deere Gator ride with DeeDee on December 30th and boy did she LOVE it!

-She met Jason's parents & his sister & nieces on December 27th.  It took her a while for her to warm up to them but, she really had some fun with them while they were here.

Christmas morning...look at that hair!  Bedheads! :)

She liked her Little Tikes roller coaster!

Opening her Baby Be Blessed Doll.  We picked out the scripture for her doll. :) 

She did NOT like Santa at all!

More of her opening gifts!  She was so cute! :) 

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Wishing you a very blessed New Year for 2012 from our family to yours!