Home 5 Weeks

Monday, July 8, 2013

Home 5 Weeks

We have been home 5 weeks today! In some ways it seems much longer than that, since we've done so many things and Caylie has come such a long way in her adjustment to her new life. Things have really gone much, much better than we imagined. Not that everything is perfect, but it is good.

Caylie is happy most of the time. Of course there are times that she must be told "no" about something, and that will set off a bad mood, or if she falls asleep in the car and wakes up cranky. Then the bad mood can go and on! But mostly she is happy. Loves her brothers and her big sister. She is comfortable wherever we go. She is shy with people when she first meets them, but will make friends if they persist in playing with her. She is good about putting away her toys and following most directions. She goes to bed without a fuss, which was one of the things I worried most about. We just wish she would sleep past 5:30am!

She is learning more English words all the time, although she understands way more than what she speaks. She will still regale us with long speeches in Chinese, though, and it makes me sad that we not only don't know what she is saying, but that she will not retain her native language once she is fluent in English. Ha . . . her newest word comes from watching Toy Story several times. She always asks for "Buh-mm-woo-ee." (Buzz and Woody!) It is cute.

She LOVES to sing and dance! Oh my goodness . . . if one of the kids gets out a dance game for the Play Station, she is SO excited! And sometimes she will just make up her own moves if she hears a song that she likes. She sometimes sings little songs in Chinese, but is always trying to sing along to the songs on KLOVE. Her favorite is Matt Redman's "10,000 Reasons". We sing that at church too, and Jim said that yesterday when we started that song, she cheered loudly! Haha. :)

Here are a few photos from the last week or so.

Hanging out with big sister Brittany. *edit: She just looked at this photo of herself and said, "Pretty girl!"

Playing cars with Justin. I should have gotten a photo of what's behind them . . . Keelan's keyboard. She loves to turn that on and "play"!

We went out to the driving range on the 4th of July to hit a few balls.

And later that night we went to watch the fireworks. She had a great time!

Popsicles are yummy! (And messy!)

She likes to take the plastic cups and plates from the lower hutch cabinet. One day she was out in the kitchen longer than usual, and I came in to see that she'd set the table! (Although I think she was expecting company!)